“Affordable” housing coming to Cité-du-Havre
A project promising 2600 new “affordable” residential units is promised for Cité‑du‑Havre, between Habitat and the MELS movie studio. Unless things have changed a lot since the last time I passed by that way, there’s nothing much around there by way of shopping or services. Let’s hope they keep this in mind, as well as transit access.
Joey 15:57 on 2026-01-10 Permalink
I moved to Griffintown in summer of 2005. At the time there wasn’t even a grocery store in the neighborhoods. I think on the weekends there was one spot to buy a cup of coffee. When I left in 2010, a lot more was happening, and now you can see for yourself. Something has to be first, and I think that thing has to be residents and not businesses.
Kate 16:15 on 2026-01-10 Permalink
They have to build with space for stores and services at least.
I have a counterexample, Joey. I worked a little on the promotional materials for the Evolo project on the northeastern tip of Nuns Island, when it was just starting around 15 years ago. Developers headlined the idea that it would be a residential area but with cafés and shops, an intentional cosy little neighbourhoody enclave near the river. I never visited the site but I could see the attractiveness of the idea. Then our bit of the contract was over and I had no reason to think about it again.
The REM opened near there recently so I streetviewed the neighbourhood to see what had developed meantime, and the answer was – not much. I’d half expected that Covid and working from home would, if anything, have been good for local merchants, but the street‑level spaces that had been allotted for businesses were mostly empty. There’s a coldness to the street layout giving a strong feeling that if you live there, you order delivery or you drive out from your underground parking. You don’t amble down the street looking for a fruiterie or an interesting place for lunch.
So looking at Cité-du-Havre, I hope potential “affordable” tenants have cars. There isn’t likely to be much for them to do close to home.
Tim S. 16:30 on 2026-01-10 Permalink
Interesting. I actually quite like that little neighbourhood. No, it’s not big enough to explore, but as a neighbourhood built from scratch I don’t know that you could do better. The cafe is always busy, the handful of times I’ve been.
That said, it would also be literally cold, with winter wind blowing in right off the river.
CE 18:27 on 2026-01-11 Permalink
@Joey, we would have been neighbours for a while. Griffintown was quite a place back then, you could really do anything you wanted and you weren’t bothering anyone! Lugging groceries down the hill from the downtown PA was a real pain though.
Annette 00:51 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
‘you could really do anything you wanted and you weren’t bothering anyone’ is how we truly felt when it was still a forsaken warehouse district, teeming with affordable, code-violating art spaces and run down old houses. Then your condos came in.
MarcG 08:25 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
I remember seeing Japanther, DDMMYYY, and Angles Mort play at Friendship Cove @ 215A Murray St around 2007 – people swinging off the exposed pipes in the ceiling, definitely an overcapacity fire hazard situation. I wonder where DIY is thriving now.
CE 10:13 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
I’m pretty sure I was at that show too MarcG. I lived just around the corner in half of what had been, a few years before, the Griffintown Co-op. We would sometimes have after parties for FF shows. I have some wild stories about that building, it’s now condos.
If you think what was built there was bad, the original proposal by Devimco was dreadful. Some of us living there started an organization to try to slow down or at least improve the plan (we knew there was no stopping it the city and borough really wanted it to happen). It turns out you just have to wait for a major financial crisis.
Kate 12:01 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
I remember before the big Griffintown rebuild, going along with a friend to visit some guys she knew who “had a place” there. These guys were living in a sort of reclaimed area in an old warehouse. They had made their space comfortable and livable enough, but the rest of the building was full of junk and not occupied. I don’t know whether they were squatting or paying someone so they could live there.
I suppose by now either that building is gone, or has been renovated into posh condos.
I also had a look around the New City Gas building as it was before it became a club. Here’s one photo I took.
MarcG 14:08 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
Great pics, Kate, that pigeon silhouette especially.
Kate 14:21 on 2026-01-12 Permalink
Thanks, MarcG. I miss that old Pentax, and the things I could do with it.