Future of the Bay’s building uncertain
It could be years before the Bay building is converted for a new purpose and it could deteriorate in the meantime. The closure also leaves a dead zone in a key part of downtown.
Later, Radio-Canada also considered the future of the building.
DeWolf 11:51 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
Dinu Bumbaru’s idea of using the building for temporary events is a good one.
The long blocks on either side of the building are already problematic and that’s with the Bay having been open. I avoid walking down that side of Union because there’s an overwhelming stench of dried urine.
Kate 12:00 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
I would begin by demolishing the brutalist section that faces de Maisonneuve – it’s hideous. I might also remove the ugly siding overhang that wraps around the front. Why did anyone ever think these were good additions?
And then yes, use the building for temporary events, popups, all kinds of things.
Looking at the layout on Streetview something occurs to me that I’ve wondered before. How is it that Hertz has an entire piece of valuable downtown land, on the east side of Aylmer, for a squat little nothing building that looks like it belongs near the train tracks?
Jim 12:03 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
This is a chance for downtown and especially Phillips Square to show its vitality. I loved the Bay there, but it had lost its relevance. It’s still a great building, though, and I hope red tape doesn’t slow redevelopment, though it likely will. Phillips Square looks great now, but every time I visit, I’m in the middle of pot smokers, and the smell is overwhelming. They have every right to be there, but it makes it less enjoyable.
Tee Owe 12:25 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
Kate – the Hertz lot is of course for car rental – it’s a convenient location for anyone staying at a downtown hotel, I have used it often. Car rental is basically parking + an office, and is lucrative – helps answer your question? I too will miss The Bay, was always my go-to for minor clothes etc needs. Simons from now on, I guess.
Blork 12:27 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
We talk about it as if it’s one building, but it’s really four or more buildings, depending on how you count and judging just from the outside and overhead views.
The part that most people think of as “The Bay” is the smallest part; the four-storey building that fronts on Ste-Catherine St. From an exterior POV it’s distinct, yet connected to the larger bulkier parts. I’ll bet it wouldn’t be particularly hard to wall that off from the bulkier parts and to create a nice prestige retail and office (or retail and residential) building.
The rest of it can probably be divided into two or three distinct pieces too, which makes it easier to re-purpose. It’s not the same as the Simpsons building, which was one gigantic block.
As for the brutalist section fronting on de Maisonneuve, I’m not convinced it needs to be demolished (especially since that might bust the Metro line running under it, which we know to be delicate). It can probably be re-skinned as long as the essential structure is solid. Re-skinning would also include adding windows of course.
Orr 12:42 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
The Musee d’Art Contemporain should put on some temporary shows there.
Call it Salle Morgans.
DeWolf 13:05 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
@Kate — The canopy dates back to the beginning of the 1900s. Obviously it can be massively improved but it’s a pretty historical part of the building. And in any case I think canopies like these are very useful in our climate.
As Blork mentions this isn’t just one building, it’s actually a massive complex with many distinct parts (plus the Hertz buildiing and a parking garage on de Maisonneuve). Whoever buys it will have the opportunity to do something pretty spectacular.
Nicholas 13:15 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
Kate’s point on the Hertz is fair: the other two Hertz downtown, and most of the other downtown car rentals, are in large buildings (PdC, hotels, etc). Why is it a surface lot next to a small garage? I have no problem with a car rental, just build something large on top of it.
Robert H 13:34 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
So now there’s 600,000 square feet sitting vacant on Sainte Catherine Street. That huge, empty building will acquire even more tags on every available surface as it joins the other dead zones that plague the downtown commercial stretch. Two redevelopment schemes have already collapsed within the last decade: first, Saks Fifth Avenue was supposed to move into the ugly end along de Maisonneuve, but nothing came of that. Then, HBC in tandem with its real estate partner RioCan was supposed to construct a shiny glass office tower above the existing building as well as revive the store itself. Again, nothing happened.
There are very few cities left in North America that have a street like Sainte Catherine. It’s remarkable how resilient it has proven to be considering the blight, neglect, and closed shops that mar so much of the district. Add to this the threat posed by competing centres like Royalmount which aims to recreate Toronto’s Yorkdale formula at the intersection of Decarie and the Met, and one might reasonably be concerned about the future viability of Centre-Ville.
Yet the core of the city seems to endure in spite of itself; investment in this structure would be worthwhile. Montreal is not yet Winnipeg or Edmonton. So, certainly, as the search for a new vocation for The Hudson’s Bay building continues, try to find ways to keep the locale an active space, perhaps, make interim improvements as Kate said: just demolishing that ugly rusting, metallic canopy over the front display windows would be a fine start. The fact that the store was one of the six remaining profitable locations initially spared from liquidation indicates that the space would still be suitable, on the lower floors at least, for a new retailer with a new concept.
Kate 13:58 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
It is amazing. There used to be other department stores, now forgotten. Because Eaton’s, Simpsons and the Bay hung on longer than most, they came to feel like permanent parts of our urban landscape – and now they’re all gone.
There used to be a department store called Scroggie’s downtown. It was a big deal at the time, but vanished more than a century ago. I would probably never have heard of the place except that I discovered that my great‑aunt Louisa Ryan was a milliner there. Hats were a big deal around the turn of the last century. No respectable person went out hatless, and women’s hats constantly changed with the seasons and the modes from Paris, so fashionable hats were a good product line for a store like that.
If you dig into the history of downtown Montreal it becomes amazing to find the layers of businesses and trends that have come and gone.
Robert H 14:18 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
That’s right, Kate. Essentially, what’s happening now with the Hudson’s Bay building is the byproduct of the collapse of the department store as a business model in North America. Selfridge’s and Harrod’s continue to attract the crowds in London; same with Galeries Lafayette and Au Printemps in Paris, Isetan in Tokyo and El Corte Ingles in Madrid. But in Canada and the United States, these types of places are extinct or struggling.
Joey 14:56 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
I’d be shocked if a big clothing retailer was able to make the space work – there’s just not enough demand for downtown clothes-shopping that isn’t currently being met. Look instead at the new businesses that have popped up in the Eaton Centre and the Cours Mont-Royal – lots more in the ‘go have fun’ category than the ‘go buy stuff that’s more expensive than online’ category, like the Trois Monkeys complex, the many claw machine arcades that have started to pop up, an escape room, disco mini putt, karaoke booths, etc. This kind of active consumption retail could draw people to downtown (or serve the many many young people who live downtown). Then again, we may be at a saturation point for that as well.
If the Bay were in the QdeS and this liquidation happened 10 years ago, it could’ve served as a home for the MAC, the new MEM, etc., alas…
Blork 17:39 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
I don’t think there’s a clothing retailer anywhere that can fill that whole space. Even the smaller original 4-storey space is absolutely huge. Look at the amount of space that Simons takes up, and that’s only one and a half stories; it would take a store three our four times bigger than Simons to fill just that original Morgans space.
And of course this is the worst possible time to consider building out new office space.
That leaves residential. Would that make a good residential building? It would certainly be elegant on the outside. Probably “luxury” condos or apartments, as if we need more of those (although I guess that’s better than nothing as at least in theory it means some existing places are vacated to fill the new ones). Nobody’s going to finance the conversion of that space into social housing, that’s for sure.
Anything else? Do we need a fancy downtown hotel? Classroom spaces for our ever-shrinking university enrolments? (HA!) Government offices? Gigantic NSA listening post and CIA safehouse? Anything else?
Kate 20:01 on 2025-06-02 Permalink
DeWolf, there’s been a canopy for decades, as you can see here in 1944. But the siding came later.
Blork, you may be right that any demolition would threaten the metro.
roberto 08:50 on 2025-06-03 Permalink
I’m looking forward to all the selection from Spirit Halloween when they pop up at the vacant location in early October.
They could make an upper floor a hauted house!
Major Annoyance 18:45 on 2025-06-03 Permalink
The little building with the Hertz outlet was originally the heating plant for The Bay, hence the utilitarian architecture. It used to be 2 storeys with a chimney but the chimney and 2nd storey were removed 25 or so years back. Until Sunday the building served as shipping and receiving for The Bay as well as handling garbage and recycling. Given that the main building has no proper service doors I figure there must be a short tunnel under Aylmer Street to the freight elevators near the north-east corner of the 1923 addition.
I bought my first and last beds at The Bay, as well as quite a few housewares. It’s hard to believe I’ve lived long enough to witness the demise of Eaton’s, Simpson’s *and* La Baie.
Useless internet trivia du jour: The elevation of the 1966 McGill metro station mezzanine was defined by the elevation of the basement of the original 1891 building.
Major Annoyance 20:04 on 2025-06-03 Permalink
The Globe and Mail ran a piece on the real estate situation in today’s issue. Bottom line: it’s pretty grim.
https://archive.ph/E6QEV
Conversion to luxury condos seems far-fetched. Those high ceilings are plenty attractive, but the floor plates are way too big. It’s hard to make the ‘square feet of floor space to linear feet of windows’ ratio come out good for all but the corner units. Developers prefer smaller floor plates for condo conversions. And buildings with potential for adding private balconies.
Per the article, RioCan REIT and The Bay seem to be co-owners of the property. I suppose they’ll both be petitioning the bankruptcy court for permission to shop the building around pretty soon. I can’t imagine who might be interested in it though. Especially with the near-dead Promenades Cathedrale mall between The Bay building and the successful part of the commercial underground city.
On the other hand, when the McGill REM station opens in 2020-something…
Best wishes, Bay building.
DeWolf 12:20 on 2025-06-04 Permalink
As Blork pointed out, the Bay isn’t just one big building, it’s several buildings in one. That gives it a big advantage over the Bay store in Winnipeg (for example). The oldest part of the building can be repurposed into a flapship retail store (urban format IKEA like on Yonge Street in Toronto?). The larger addition at the back can be chopped up into a hotel and/or offices. And the 1970s annex on de Maisonneuve can be redeveloped into an apartment tower.
Tee Owe 14:58 on 2025-06-04 Permalink
Thanks Major Annoyance for the update on that building and how it relates to the core Bay buildings – I hadn’t known – interested to know more about the tunnel
Ian 20:15 on 2025-06-04 Permalink
I remember Kresge’s and Woolworth’s growing up. even Eaton’s seemed eternal. You get over it.
I seriously doubt the building will stand empty for long, even in Montreal.
I do miss the Kresge’s lunch counter, though.