Spectrum site project gets taller
Maestria, the project now planned for the site of the old Spectrum, is going to go even higher than originally planned and be purely residential. Whether it will have to follow the Plante administration’s new guidelines for social, “affordable” and family-size units remains to be seen.
Jack 11:41 on 2019-02-12 Permalink
Can someone help me out on this blog. This project gets pulled out of this developers …, it isn’t approved by any Montreal city planning officials or the mayor, and its currently advertised as a “fait accompli”. This is the same company that created Griffintown’s urban footprint. So frankly I wouldn’t let them build a sandbox. Whats up?
https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/montreal/542013/projet-immobilier
Bill Binns 12:46 on 2019-02-12 Permalink
@Jack – “it isn’t approved by any Montreal city planning officials or the mayor”
Does a developer require any of those approvals? I’m not sure here but in other places I have lived, as long as the project fits within the regulations set by the zoning of the neighborhood it is quite difficult to stop it from being built. The city can try to drag it’s feet on permitting but can be sued over that.
Douglas 13:05 on 2019-02-12 Permalink
If the developper submits a project that is within the guidelines, the CCU has to act in good faith to accommodate the project. Not throw roadblocks.
If developper is asking for more than zoning requires, then he is at the mercy of the city.
qatzelok 14:19 on 2019-02-12 Permalink
What’s the point of reading Jane Jacobs if you then sit back and watch the Robert Moses’ of the world continue their pillaging?
This ugly archeology of a building will obviously negatively impact this part of the city with shadows, wind tunnels, and vertigo.
Jack 21:01 on 2019-02-12 Permalink
That building would make me proud of being from Dubai.
david100 04:30 on 2019-02-13 Permalink
I’d love it if this were built, but it won’t be. Tail end of the boom, Chinese capital controls leading to slowdowns worldwide, interest rates rising, speculators receding from the market, but without any significant reduction in the cost of construction, and several towers in much more desirable areas coming online (Griffintown, Old Montreal, Cabot Square, the area around Overdale/Bell Center, and even the Bleury/Sherbrooke towers).
Still, would be pretty neat. Think about how recognizable these would be on the skyline. It’s not too well known, but there’s also a couple of towers proposed pretty much right across from this, on the site of the demolished old children’s home/school that’s now a grass lot next to the SNC-Lavalin building. In addition to this, you have a very real possibility that the Yaccarini tower next to Cleopatra goes up, as does the next Bleury/Sherbrooke tower. If all of these were constructed, we could be looking at 2000+ new units in the area, which would do wonders for virtually every business in the central city, and would put improvements like pedestrianization and tree-planting into hyperdrive. What’s not to like?
david100 04:35 on 2019-02-13 Permalink
Sorry, units for 2000+ residents.
Kate 13:07 on 2019-02-13 Permalink
david100, shadows and wind tunnels, and the unpleasant sensation of being like ants walking around under huge buildings. Bleury is too narrow to have buildings like that on both sides. You can do it on René-Lévesque but not on Bleury.
david100 22:34 on 2019-02-13 Permalink
Every housing unit that’s built down there is one that’s not being bid up in the neighborhoods. Everyone in Montreal (aside from landowners looking to sell) should be cheering residential development in the core.
Every extra person living down there supports and sustains neighborhood-anchoring shops, and shifts Sainte-Cath back into what many of us remember it being – not the chain shop dystopia so much of it is today.
Extra population forces the city to make pedestrian/resident-focused improvements, from which we all benefit.
The Desjardins complex is Montreal’s answer to the Rockefeller Center. The PdA is Montreal’s answer to the Lincoln Center. Let this new project be Montreal’s answer to some of the higher end super towers going up now on W. 57th, the Hudson Yards down off the High Line, or even the Upper East Side.
Also, Kate, while I respect your opinion on a lot of issues, I have to disagree with you (and many others) on the development of Bleury. There’s nobody forced to live there, and if the places are truly oppressive, the market will reflect that by pushing the price of rentals/condos there down. But the fact of continued demand for units there at prices that pencil for new construction means that, clearly, lots of people want to live here. And this is great! Proximity to tens of thousands of others, to the metro, to top shelf amenities, walk to work, walk to the Fleuve if it’s not too cold. The fact that shadows or light on Bleury may be more or less than what some folks living in the neighborhoods may feel is appropriate should be a very secondary (or, like, octiary) concern when measured against the value that this form of urban development brings.