City hall costs top $182 million
The cost of restoring City Hall has now reached $182 million, after an initial estimate of $22.5 million in 2015. As the work was being done, more and more aspects of the building were revealed as needing work.
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Kate
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Spi 10:51 on 2022-08-23 Permalink
La responsable du patrimoine, Émilie Thuillier […] « Pour nous, l’hôtel de ville, c’est le coeur de la vie citoyenne montréalaise. Le projet a évolué en un projet de restauration patrimoniale exemplaire et en un projet d’appropriation citoyenne de l’hôtel de ville »
What absolute crock, how are you going to say it’s the heart of citizen life and then also admit only a few lucky ones have ever had the chance to enjoy it. How many or for what reason exactly does a regular montreal citizen go into the city hall?
If you want to conserve and restore a patrimonial building just say that instead of feeding the media some additional comms BS about the citizenry.
Kate 11:18 on 2022-08-23 Permalink
Well, there is the Hall of Honour, it’s definitely been open to the public, and it’s also been possible to go in and watch council sessions if you’re interested.
For a lot of people, the balcony where De Gaulle made his “Vive le Québec libre” speech in 1967 makes city hall an historic spot for that reason alone.
I’ve been inside the building a few times and so have many Montrealers. I don’t know how intense the security has become in very recent years, though.
The building is bound to present difficulties. As the article reminds us, it was built in the 1870s and sustained a massive fire in 1922. The existing building was reconstructed on the footprint of the old one to standards of a hundred years ago. It’s no crock that they’ve had to completely redo almost everything – heating, plumbing, electrics, and modern communications ducts as well, and that’s besides redoing the windows and other visible architectural stuff to match the style.
It would probably be cheaper in the long run to demolish and rebuild, but that would be an even harder sell. In 2122, people will be groaning about having to redo the stuff done to a 21st‑century standard in 2022.
DeWolf 18:03 on 2022-08-23 Permalink
You could demolish and rebuilt a glass box, but if you demolished and rebuilt a replica of the existing building, it would be vastly more expensive than any restoration.
@Spi, anyone can wander into city hall and council meetings are open to the public, so I’m not really sure what you’re upset about?
Em 10:00 on 2022-08-24 Permalink
City Hall is quite a beautiful building — and a huge one, so definitely an expensive reno.
It’s pretty accessible to the public in my experience (didn’t Denis Coderre even perform some weddings there?) but enlarging access and making it more welcoming would be good.