Commercial streets: how are they doing?
La Presse looks at a report on vacancies on commercial streets in Montreal and other Quebec towns, showing that Ste‑Catherine and St‑Denis are still hurting to some extent, while Masson Street is thriving and many of the other neighbourhood main streets are doing OK.
DeWolf 11:33 on 2022-09-19 Permalink
Ste-Catherine is such a long street, it really ought to have been divided into several sections in the study. The part between Atwater and Guy is thriving, with a lot of new Asian businesses that have opened through the pandemic. Guy to St-Laurent is also doing pretty well despite a few high-profile vacancies caused by chain stores that have closed. It’s the section east of St-Laurent that is struggling. The Village is probably the neighbourhood hardest hit by the pandemic and that just compounded the decline it had been seeing for several years already.
St-Denis is definitely on the upswing. I’ve been there a lot this year, both on foot and on bike, and it’s busier than I’ve seen it in at least a decade. There have been a lot of new openings, although as this study shows there are still quite a few vacant spaces.
Laurier West vs. Laurier East is an interesting case. Laurier West is generally quite high-end, and despite the streetscape improvements a few years ago, it’s not a particularly inviting place. Despite the wider sidewalks it still feels too much like a thoroughfare for cars. I get the impression that a lot of people there are going to destination restaurants or shops but aren’t spending much time on the street otherwise. By contrast, Laurier East is beautifully shaded by trees, it has an interesting mix of destination and neighbourhood businesses, and the bike lanes and traffic reconfiguration from Luc Ferrandez’s early days have made it much more intimate and inviting than it once was. Unlike Laurier West, Laurier East is always busy, sometimes remarkably so.
Kate 12:54 on 2022-09-19 Permalink
DeWolf, by Laurier East do you mean that section between Laurier Park and Papineau? I’ve always found that area to be one of the nicest enclaves in the Plateau. The section of Laurier between Park Avenue and St‑Laurent is not too bad (although the last time I was along there, there was still a kind of dead spot where the Gascogne closed) but that car wash block is an eyesore.
Laurier West really suffers from being a kind of off‑ramp for Côte Ste‑Catherine.
Ian 17:45 on 2022-09-19 Permalink
Laurier west has been dead on its feet for 15+ years, mostly because the retail model they follow is overpriced boutique & designer stuff. Only the bars between Parc and Saint Larry are doing ok, and a handful of old stalwart restaurants between Parc and Eglise Saint-Viateur. Even the Couche Tard is usually empty. Most of the high end “local-ish” shopping shifted to Bernard – which is doing great. The neighbourhood has shifted. On the other hand Laurier East very directly mirrors the kind of gentrification that has happened over the are in the same period of time, along with that entire stretch of the Plateau. Some 20 years ago that was still a working class neighbourhood in pockets but then again so was Marianne and we all know what has happened to that whole area since. If you guys think gentrification means the neighbourhood is intimate and welcoming, great, but certainly none of the people that made the Plateau interesting can afford to buy there. There are hardly any “cool kids” left in the entire borough. Lots of pretty planters though, for all the good they do.
DeWolf 18:55 on 2022-09-19 Permalink
You’re right, Laurier East is a wasteland of gentrified zombies. Horrible place. How could I have ever thought otherwise.
Ian 10:35 on 2022-09-20 Permalink
No worse than what happened to Saint Viateur I suppose.
DeWolf 11:54 on 2022-09-20 Permalink
St-Viateur is worse. Laurier East doesn’t have an Aesop or a Lululemon, and it certainly doesn’t have people double-parking their Audis and Range Rovers to pick up their $25 doucheburger.
Ian 18:57 on 2022-09-20 Permalink
Audis? I see Porsches street parking on Jeanne-Mance these days. Point taken, but really Saint Viateur is the gentrification endgame. We need to stop thinking of urban planning and improvement in Richard Florida terms (which PM ascribes to) as they are essentially elitist and lead to frankly stupid ideas like rebuilding traffic flows without traffic flow studies – Luc Rabouin recently not only defended but promoted this approach. Spending the city budget on pretty infrastructure and traffic calming looks nice, but if they aren’t willing to fight landlords and developers it leads to doucheburgers.
Much of the Plateau has turned into doucheburgers, Saint Henri has turned into doucheburgers, Verdun is turning into doucheburgers, maybe we can agree that the type of gentrification PM seems to be openly advocating for and contributing to leads to doucheburgers.
It’s actually easier to find an affordable rent in Outremont than Mile End these days.
Of course since so many of Projet’s elected officials are landlords it’s hardly surprising they not-so-secretly support gentrification.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/oct/26/gentrification-richard-florida-interview-creative-class-new-urban-crisis