Police blotter of the weekend
A woman died in an apartment fire in Ahuntsic overnight.
An injured man with his hands tied was seen on the sidewalk on the lower Main on Sunday morning, and it seems he was beaten up in an abandoned building nearby.
(Footnote: What’s the deal with that row of buildings anyway? In that location, fixed up, they could be rented out for a nice price, but they’ve been run down ever since I can remember.)
The pilot project to allow alcohol to be sold at Club Soda till 8 am has been called a success.
Update: Metro identifies the fire victim, Monique Dauphin, a woman of Haitian origin who had worked to support immigrant and indigenous women.
Blork 11:56 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
Regarding that row of buildings on the lower main, I suspect they are run down more on the inside than is apparent on the outside, so even a basic renovation would cost many millions, and nobody wants to put up the scratch for the sake of a few rentals.
It’s also weirdly placed, in that the back of those buildings butt right up against the back of the buildings on Clark, meaning there is no light, probably a lot of machine noise, easy access for burglars, etc. So the back of your unit is dark and scary (and probably loud and smelly) and the front of your unit is right on a busy boulevard ON A HILL so cars are gunning it all the time.
IOW, not a particularly attractive situation for a renter. So the landlord sinks $10 million into renos for what, 8 or 10 apartments, and do you think they’ll get the $2500/month or so they’d need to cover that mortgage given what I describe above? I doubt it.
Blork 12:00 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
Update: rent would have to be closer to $6000/month per unit to cover a $10M reno, so these are just back-of-napkin calculations. But if you include the retail space in that $10M then it helps a lot, and $10M is just a wild guess. Maybe you could make them liveable for $5M, but I doubt it. Bottom line: to expensive to renovate give the poor prospects for high rent.
MarcG 12:10 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
One of them has had some reno done and there are interior shots on streetview – pretty neat to see the exposed stone. https://goo.gl/maps/MHTr5VYaBVdjVe7GA
Nick D. 13:35 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
I know it’s an issue that comes up every now and again (and didn’t the city just announce it was going to Do Something about it, maybe?) but the sheer number of empty stores on the Main is really shocking, still. From René-Levesque all the way up to about Villeneuve there are just so many empty retail units, especially between Maisonneuve and about Duluth or so. Is anyone counting? I live around the 3800 level and I would guess it’s almost 50% of storefronts are empty. Is there any good analysis of this? (I mean, that goes beyond hand-wringing?)
DeWolf 15:57 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
@Nick D., the vacancy rate on St-Laurent is 12% from Sherbrooke to Laurier:
https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/2023-01-08/developpement-immobilier/les-deux-faces-de-la-main.php
According to the SDC, only half of those vacant spaces are available to rent. The rest are effectively abandoned.
Joey 16:04 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
Don’t worry, give Projet Mtl three or four more terms and they’ll get around to a vacant commercial storefront tax… Just gotta hire some more police first…
Ian 23:07 on 2023-01-23 Permalink
I doubt it even then, PM is very cautious about the possibility of litigation from developers and/or commercial landlords if they change any tax laws or impose penalties of any form. Only low-hanging fruit from this gang.