Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:00 on 2021-02-20 Permalink Reply  

• qatzelok 10:54 on 2021-02-20 Permalink

  Never underestimate the power of money-laundering.

• dhomas 12:11 on 2021-02-20 Permalink

  They can’t afford to pay rent, but they can afford this?
  https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-quebec-court-orders-hbc-to-pays-its-rent-despite-pandemic-strain/

• DeWolf 14:38 on 2021-02-20 Permalink

  The Bay is not a developer, dhomas. They will either partner with a developer on this and split the rental income, or they will wait until the tower is approved and sell it as a turnkey project, renting out a portion of the space for a much smaller store. Either way they stand only to profit from this.

  They probably would have done something similar in Winnipeg but there just isn’t demand for $100 million real estate projects there. So that building will be sold and may be demolished, just as Winnipeg demolished its fantastic Eaton’s building.

• Phil M 17:18 on 2021-02-20 Permalink

  They couldn’t build a tower on the nearly vacant lot across the street where they have their loading docks, and a dinky Hertz rental outlet?

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting rid of the nasty concrete facade on De Maisonneuve, but this design has zero aesthetic relationship to the original building.

  I vote no (fully aware I have no vote).

• david672 00:51 on 2021-02-24 Permalink

  Just to settle a personal score, I’d like to note:

  But Raphaël Fischler, dean of environmental design at the Université de Montréal, questioned the market
  for such a development, given the decreased demand for office space.

  No longer at McGill.

  “I find it puzzling they would come up with an office project at this time,” he said. “Everyone is asking
  questions about the office market and even the condo market.”

  Never worked in the field, has no idea about economics of commercial construction.

  Fischler also expressed concern about highrise development in the downtown core, including a 61-storey
  condo tower in Phillips Square, which faces the Bay.

  He’s talking about the development of a parking lot almost as old as the city, and expressing skepticism about introducing commerce-saving residents and workers, because . . .

  “I don’t think we need such tall buildings in these locations,” he said.

  Why? He has degrees from very highly acclaimed schools, why is he so skeptical about development when it’s basically his metier? Here’s a hint, in the form of a statement from another architect:

  “Architecturally, the project for the Bay appears as an all-too-common example of the exploitation of a site
  to maximize real-estate return,” Martin Bressani, director of the Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture
  at McGill University, said by email.

  The architects who don’t practice do not understand that the practice of architecture only exists in a world in which people pay architects for their services. It’s one of the most stark and adroit examples of ideology v. industry that there is.

  People want some perfect vision that they’ve cooked up, that vision just doesn’t pencil, so they oppose whatever does pencil.