Rapido building: demolished without a permit
The building at St-Denis and Mont-Royal that used to house the Rapido restaurant was demolished without a permit, only the shell of the stone façade left standing. This happened early in the summer but is only being formally reported now: the owner had a permit to enlarge the building, not gut it.
Ian 09:50 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Wow, that’s quite a contravention – I was surprised to see the building suddenly reduced to a facade after so many years of standing empty.
Alex 11:50 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
When we had to get a permit for the replacement of the bricks on the front of our apartment (which ended up costing us double because the city forced us to re-add a corniche that was taken off the building in the 70s) the person from the construction site mentioned that for people with a lot of money, its easier and cheaper to just do the work and pay the fine than to get a permit to do the work that you want. The system seems a bit broken
Ephraim 13:04 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Plus the city employees will cite regulations that don’t exist, because that is how they were taught. We challenged… they couldn’t find the regulation.
Alex 13:08 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
When I asked if we could challenge it, the guy said ‘well you can, but it will come to me and I am going to say no’
Kate 14:36 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Alex, the second half of the linked article talks about a situation very much like yours, in which the owner of a Plateau residential building was forced to make repairs in a specific, expensive style, even though it was something that couldn’t be seen from the street.
david32 14:51 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
It’s a good project, building out over that surface parking lot in the low rise historic style that anti-growth people: https://mtlurb.com/topic/17071-4494-rue-saint-denis-rapidoboite-noire-%E2%80%93-3-etages/
david32 14:52 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
anti-growth people and bureaucrats on the plateau demand, no matter how much it drives up costs and rents.
Blork 15:28 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Hmmm. While I don’t approve of them just going ahead and demolishing outside of the permit’s permit (so to speak), this one seems like a tempest in a teapot. The building dates from 1940 (not that long ago) and is not architecturally interesting. However, I can understand the desire to maintain the style and scale of original building, given the location and all (it would be very ugly and out of place to put in a 20-storey tower there).
In terms of “facadism” this is an example where it’s OK, because the building that’s replacing the old one is generally of the same style and scale as the original, and uses the original’s facade. So the effect on the intersection is minimal, and the resulting building will be new and presumably built to code and should last a long time.
This is quite different from the type of facadism where an historic building is replaced by a much larger structure that uses a bit of the orignal’s facade to try to fit in at street level. That’s a whole different thing.
Here’s the proposed final result. Frankly, a bit boring, but at least it blends in:
https://studiomma.ca/en/projects/multi-family-residential/cornerstone/
Joey 15:57 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
You mean it’s not the official mission of the Plateau permit department to triple your construction costs all the while forcing you to use inappropriate building materials because *maybe* that’s what they did 100 years ago?* Bonus points to the technologist bureaucrat who gets to overrule architects and structural engineers.
*NB this commitment to the past does not apply to baseball diamonds
Max 20:38 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
It’s very strange to see the facade held up with what looks like regular scaffolding. All other facade-preservation jobs I’ve seen have gotten a much beefier support structure.
Blork 21:19 on 2020-08-25 Permalink
Max, if you look closely you can see there is some kind of bracing on both sides of the structure. Still doesn’t seem like much though.
Ian 07:23 on 2020-08-26 Permalink
I suspect they only left up that wall so this technically counts as a renovation, not a new construction. If it mysteriously falls down part way through, oh well.