Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:13 on 2020-12-12 Permalink Reply  

• mare 12:07 on 2020-12-12 Permalink

  There are still some trees to be planted I think, and there’s a huge shortage of bicycle racks.

  The final result looks nice; wider, more open and much more inviting for pedestrians. Officially the maximum speed is 20km/h and cars have to yield to cyclists and pedestrians but that (surprise!) doesn’t really happen yet. But because there is less parking, and only one driving lane, there are often enough cars waiting for, or backing up, for parking and that keeps the speed and traffic low.

  Unfortunately a lot of merchants didn’t survive the long street closure and then the lockdown on top of it. There are some specialty stores that are destinations and probably will survive, but also a lot of outlets and cheap clothing stores with razor-thin margins that have closed or will close soon. The rents are pretty high, aimed at fancy stores and gentrification. I’m curious if, in the current situation, anybody will fill those many empty storefronts. There are large ugly gaps with one ‘for rent” sign next to the other, if would be great if the merchant association would commission some neighbourhood artists to make temporary “murals” on the windowpanes. Or let artists put their art on display for free, until that store is rented. That way the street would look more inviting, both for shoppers and for future shopkeepers.

  (If only I was the boss of Montreal…)

• DeWolf 12:45 on 2020-12-12 Permalink

  The other day I saw a statement by the SDC saying that there has been a net influx of businesses over the past two years (ie more new businesses opened than closed) which I can believe, since I don’t notice many more vacant storefronts than when construction started. The trend mare is describing above has been happening for at least 10 years.

  The street really varies from block to block. Bélanger to Jean-Talon is very lively, with almost no vacant storefronts and lots of pedestrian traffic. Saint-Zotique to Bélanger is a weird black hole as it has been for several years now. Below Saint-Zotique is where most of the gentrification is taking place and I expect there will be a lot of new businesses that open in the coming years – specialty shops, bars, restaurants.

  Mare, do you have any specific figures for what rents are like on Saint-Hubert right now? I’d be curious to know.

• mare 17:06 on 2020-12-12 Permalink

  @DeWolf Not exact figures, but one of my clients owns a store on St-Hubert (North of St-Zotique) and when construction was almost done on his block he wanted to rent the empty neighbouring store, but got severe sticker shock. Retrospectively he was glad because the past year he was just capable to pay the salaries of his employees, with the lockdown and construction.