{"id":14895,"date":"2012-07-16T17:06:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-16T21:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=14895"},"modified":"2013-01-21T11:44:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T16:44:48","slug":"innovation-district-latest-attempt-at-griffintown-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2012\/07\/16\/innovation-district-latest-attempt-at-griffintown-development\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cInnovation District\u201d latest attempt at Griffintown development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>A special contribution by Henry Gass<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Dow Brewery\" src=\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/network\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2012\/07\/Dow-Brewery.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>The former Dow Brewery, at Peel and Notre-Dame.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8230;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A new project designed to ignite a lucrative innovation industry south of downtown Montreal also hopes to succeed where handfuls of developers have failed in recent years: revitalizing the Griffintown area.Yet despite securing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcgill.ca\/newsroom\/news\/item\/?item_id=216378\">over $1 million<\/a> in funding and entering its pre-launch phase earlier this year, very little is known about what will comprise the \u201cQuartier de l\u2019innovation\u201d (QI) project.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">A joint venture led by the \u00c9cole de technologie sup\u00e9rieure (\u00c9TS) and McGill University, the QI aims to host professors, researchers, students, and businesses in a \u201cliving laboratory,\u201d spurring innovation.\u201cYou will have access in that very close neighbourhood to institutions, to students, to knowledge, to craft, and to other businesses,\u201d said Olivier Marcil, McGill VP External Relations. \u201cInnovation, you create this with contact with people.\u201d Griffintown residents have been exposed to the project as part of consultation carried out this year regarding Griffintown development in general by the Office de consultation publique de Montr\u00e9al (OCPM).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The area has been plagued in recent years by multiple attempts at revitalization, most notably the ongoing and embattled <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2010\/08\/31\/devimcos-new-griffintown-scheme-district-griffin\/\">\u201cDistrict Griffin\u201d<\/a> project headed by developer Devimco. Jeff Dungen, spokesperson for the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.griffintown.org\/\"> Committee for the Sustainable Redevelopment of Griffintown<\/a>, is concerned the glut of development projects could stunt the areas continued growth. \u201cFrom [the OPCM consultation] it was clearly stated that there has been absolutely no coherent planning between the [borough] and the City of Montreal for the neighbourhood. There still today is no plan,\u201d said Dungen.<\/p>\n<p>The Griffintown skyline is crowded with new condo towers and construction cranes. \u201cIt\u2019s all condos, no commerce,\u201d said Dungen. If complementary services aren\u2019t factored into development projects, he said \u201cthen you\u2019re stuck building all that stuff retroactively. Condos and educational institutions don\u2019t necessarily have complementary needs\u2026so when you have this planning in a vacuum where no one\u2019s talking to each other, what you end up with could be a total pile of shit, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Both \u00c9TS and McGill insist this will not be the case with the QI. While McGill only came on board recently, \u00c9TS has been developing the project since 2009. \u00c9TS spokesperson Olivier Audet said the project will emphasize the \u201cimportance of a [diversity] of services.\u201d Similar innovation districts have been developed in cities from Barcelona and Lyons, to Boston and Toronto. Marcil said he thinks the QI will improve on the social aspects of past projects. \u201cThe social part or character of that neighbourhood in Montreal will be unique across the world, no doubt about it,\u201d said Marcil.<\/p>\n<p>\u00c9TS has already purchased one building for the project, the former Dow Brewery building on the corner of Peel and Notre-Dame. Marcil said McGill was \u201clooking at\u201d possibly buying property. The two schools are also still in the process of finding corporate partners for the project \u2013 businesses that would sponsor the project and take up office space in the district.\u201cStudents, staff, researchers could go there and have an opportunity to be in contact with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Small_and_medium_enterprises\">SMEs<\/a> and projects,\u201d said Marcil.<\/p>\n<p>The project drew criticism from McGill students in February when it was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcgilldaily.com\/2012\/01\/mcgill-plans-to-expand-into-griffintown\/\">first publically revealed<\/a>, without prior consultation. McGill students were also critical of potential corporate ties within the QI project. McGill included Bombardier, Google and Monsanto as possible corporate partners in February, a list the McGill Daily <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcgilldaily.com\/2012\/04\/quartier-de-linnovation-to-launch-in-september\/\">later reported<\/a> was \u201cpurely hypothetical.\u201dMarcil said McGill will also begin consultations with students on the project in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>Steeve Lemay, an education consultant and Griffintown resident who participated in the OCPM consultation, supports the \u201cinitial intention\u201d of the QI project, but is worried the project appears to offer little to families. \u201cIt\u2019s a few young professionals who are involved in the process,\u201d said Lemay.Lemay said he would like to see science and technology-focused primary and secondary schools associated with \u00c9TS launched as part of the QI, providing the example of the<a href=\"http:\/\/face.csdm.qc.ca\/face_english\/\"> \u00c9cole FACE<\/a> neighbouring McGill. \u201cThere are ways in the Quartier de l\u2019innovation to create a neighborhood that is not only for the bourgeois, not only for people in the area promoters attract,\u201d said Lemay.<\/p>\n<p>Dungen was critical of \u00c9TS past involvement in the neighbourhood, however, saying the school sees the neighbourhood \u201cas an opportunity&#8221;. He continued saying, \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that ETS is a big champion of the neighbourhood, apart from anything that makes it sound like they\u2019re really great. If you walk on William Street, which is really the border of Griffintown, all their buildings that face out on there absolutely couldn&#8217;t give a shit about the neighbourhood.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marcil said McGill and \u00c9TS expect the project to develop over decades, possibly for up to 25 years. He added that they don\u2019t want to make \u201cthe mistake of going very quick and behind closed doors.\u201d\u00a0Given the recent history of development in Griffintown, however, residents remain sceptical. Both Lemay and Dungen added that the OCPM\u2019s recommendations <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2009\/09\/19\/executive-committee-oks-main-makeover-despite-ocpm-recommendation\/\">don\u2019t have to be observed<\/a> by the city and developers.\u00a0\u201cIt&#8217;s a bit sad,\u201d said Lemay. The process is good, but when in fact it is negligible, it&#8217;s ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Re-zoning is one area where Dungen said the authority of the OCPM recommendations could play an important role.\u00a0\u201cOne of the big question marks with Quartier de l\u2019Innovation is: what are they actually trying to build?\u201d said Dungen. \u201cIf it requires a change will they respect the recommendations and wait for there to be a plan before they go ahead?\u201d\u00a0Audet said there are no re-zoning plans yet for the project, confirming that the two schools are still developing an overall business plan for the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A special contribution by Henry Gass &nbsp; The former Dow Brewery, at Peel and Notre-Dame. &#8230; A new project designed to ignite a lucrative innovation industry south of downtown Montreal also hopes to succeed where handfuls of developers have failed in recent years: revitalizing the Griffintown area.Yet despite securing over $1 million in funding and<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2012\/07\/16\/innovation-district-latest-attempt-at-griffintown-development\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;\u201cInnovation District\u201d latest attempt at Griffintown development&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7829,7836,7839,7842],"tags":[9,7555,242,36,73,81,377,125,159,7557,5,7556,45,80,302,7558],"class_list":["post-14895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-engagement","category-headlines","category-neighbourhoods","category-urban-design","tag-development","tag-dow-brewery","tag-ets","tag-griffintown","tag-headlines-a-la-une","tag-mcgill","tag-mcgill-university","tag-montreal","tag-office-de-consultation-publique-de-montreal","tag-olivier-marcil","tag-planning","tag-qi","tag-revitalisation","tag-universities","tag-usd","tag-vp-external-relations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - 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