proposed "village griffintown" monstrosity.......

[squelchpalace]

for anyone interested, there is a public consultation tonight at 5:30pm......being held at ETS (Ecole de technologie superieure)...1150 Notre Dame O.......Ampitheatre A-1150 .........there are 4 different presentation/discussions happening......the one that seems the most critical is happening in Atelier 1.......culture/design/architecture/heritage/history................DEVIMCO is the megadeveloper that is proposing to level griffintown from the old abandoned postal station just west of montagne, all the way to the bonaventure......and from the lachine canal all the way to ottawa street..........more information here:

http://savegriffintown.wordpress.com/

..........this is for anyone interested in urbanplanning/architecture.....preserving a sense of community......and voicing some sort of opposition to this proposed monstrosity (which will be a  garish/monotone disneyfied wasteland on nine hits of bad acid).............

.......you have to call and reserve a spot......telephone # is 514-606-5884.......ask for rachel desrochers.......

....these folks are organizing it:    http://www.resomtl.com/fr/accueil.aspx

[Laika]

will pins and friendship cove be affected by this?

[b.louder]

from the sounds of it, yes.

[squelchpalace]

pines, not yet.....only a matter of time.....friendship cove yes.......

[Ice-T]

Let go of the past.
Embrace your fascist future.


A message from TetraVaal™

[Louis]

seriously, the plan is to literally level that whole area and build suburban-style malls, apartment buildings and walmarts, just like in Brossard (where this same company built a huge mall district called Dix30). The major selling point seems to be that downtowners deserve to have big-box stores just like the suburbanites have, and also deserve better parking than they get on ste-catherine st.

it isn't like there aren't enough empty lots and unused rail yards to build on already, the developers should just be told to build only on those parts. however it sounds like they've bought nearly every building in the area and will be applying for demolition permits soon...

[minister of hate]

harvey  at technolith hasn't sold any of  his properties yet
 or so he says

dix30 is a fuckin'  satan spawn , we drive  past it everytime we go visit yannick's parents. it's the last thing we need downtown.

[madsci]

I read that the developer is playing hardball to get a tramway built and will pull-out of the project if the city doesn't do it for him. Any details on this? I'd think that this might be a deal-killer, considering how terrible this city is at getting transit projects built.

[deeselig]

will pins and friendship cove be affected by this?

time to exercise some of that Cote St Luc clout, bro.

[vaquera sola]

I read that the developer is playing hardball to get a tramway built and will pull-out of the project if the city doesn't do it for him. Any details on this? I'd think that this might be a deal-killer, considering how terrible this city is at getting transit projects built.

yes....
Also, the proposed terminus lies at  Devimco's Brossard development....

Henry Aubin wrote about it in the Gazette ("What's that large sucking sound?")

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=b6479a29-2263-48bf-9cdd-a4d3f7e4bb74&p=2

[Frank Liquide]

Rapport du Conseil du patrimoine de Montréal sur le sujet (in french, sorry. There's probably an english version somewhere).
http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/CONSEIL_PATRIMOINE_MTL_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/A07-SO-01.PDF

[pablo]

it's a shame that they're not real consultations... they're held by the arrondissement when they should be held by the Office de consultation publique like any other project that affects urban planning at the city scale... the OCPM is an independant office, neutral... shame...

[dead messenger]

Wow that sucks, but people made such a stink about the casino idea so that project got squashed right? Maybe this one will too (fingers crossed) They should spend all that money fixing and expanding the metro.

[Ice-T]

everyone makes a stink when the city tries to bring in some kind of decent tax dollar, but everyone's also pissed off that the metro sucks.

if you want money, you have to become a whore.

[vaquera sola]

it's a shame that they're not real consultations... they're held by the arrondissement when they should be held by the Office de consultation publique like any other project that affects urban planning at the city scale... the OCPM is an independant office, neutral... shame...

this is but one of many stinks coming out of this one.
At the last public meeting, held across the canal in a different neighborhood, the Devimco rep was pissed that an actual griffintown resident was in attendance. 

As for city-wide impact, those who aren't familiar with the neighborhood should imagine a development the size of, say, the blocks bordered by St Joseph/Bernard/Parc/St. Urbain.......

My favorite cheery PR pitch is how it is a "Kyoto Friendly" project because it increases density in the downtown area....while simultaneously gushing over the benefits of tearing down existing buildings and replacing them with ample parking and box stores schlepping imported plastic goods from China.   

[pablo]

Wow that sucks, but people made such a stink about the casino idea so that project got squashed right? Maybe this one will too (fingers crossed) They should spend all that money fixing and expanding the metro.

the executive council's and mayor trembly's attitude lately has been that they're "tired of being told what to do by the public" and the mayor still hasn't digested the parc ave. fiasco... he recently said something along the lines that the pressure groups stopped the cirque du soleil project because they didn't agree with it and that it's time to just move forward with a project or else we'll never do anything... there seems to be a lot of that lately (rabaska?)...

personnally, i'm not pissed that there is a project in griffintown, on the contrary, the hood needs and deserves some attention... what pisses me off is that the large-scale projects lately (let's say since the 80's at least) seem to lack a certain sense of permanence or a wish of being structuring at a large scale for the city. the city hall should actually shape these projects to be structuring, instead, they approve any project and adapt to them... that's doing things backwards.

[madsci]

The best thing they could do for the hood would be to change the zoning laws back to allow for a mix of residential and commercial development to occur in the area. It seems that Montreal mayors have a major hard-on for big elaborate megaprojects that end up being white elephants for generations to come. You want to build a new casino? Sure, not a bad idea, I guess. But wait! Let's build a casino with a big hotel, and showroom, and cirque du soleil, and monorail, and soccer stadium... Jesus. If someone wants to build a Walmart in Griffintown, so be it - why do we have to raze the whole neighbourhood? Did we not learn from the first time we knocked the place over? Or Goose Village? Or Longue Pointe? Faubourg Ste marie? Jesus.

[vaquera sola]

i am not against development in griffintown either.....but this proposal is brutal, no matter how you slice it.......what about groups of architects/urban planners/artists/business folks etc. sitting in a room and trying to come up with something interesting.......what DEVIMCO proposes is soul-less and oppressive.......
..........can the city even support/see this project through?..........they are proposing a 10 year construction phase........i could see them running out of steam 5 years in and then what are we left with?.........

[squelchpalace]

i am not against development in griffintown either.....but this proposal is brutal, no matter how you slice it.......what about groups of architects/urban planners/artists/business folks etc. sitting in a room and trying to come up with something interesting.......what DEVIMCO proposes is soul-less and oppressive.......
..........can the city even support/see this project through?..........they are proposing a 10 year construction phase........i could see them running out of steam 5 years in and then what are we left with?.........

man.....posted under the wrong name again.....for the record, that was me......not speaking for vaquera sola.......

[MrCoffea]

I hope they end up doing whatever they want to do

much better than having a shithole like the one pictured above in our city

[pablo]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! YES! HAHAHAHAHA! SERIOUSLY! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! IT'S TRUE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! FAGS! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SHIT! HAHAHAHAHA! HOLE! LOL! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Louis]

I don't know if they really care how much of the early phases are built, just as long as they tear down grungy buildings as much as possible while the dream of a mega-project is around. This is how the city has historically "prepared" lots for eventual towers and projects.

There are still tons of empty lots around the whole Radio-Canada/CBC building that were never built on. Next to the SNC building on R-L there is a parking lot where a historic catholic school used to sit -- they were supposed to build a 2nd officer tower there in 1994. They didn't. Pretty much any vacant lot you see in central Montreal has a simliar story -- not least of which are all the empty lots in fuckin GRIFFINTOWN!! Why'd they tear the shit down in the first place??

Technically there should at least be a protocol at the city that no demolition permits be issued until shortly before construction is about to begin. It would be worth bringing this up at any consultation -- otherwise the developer will probably tear it all down and possibly not even ever build all these phases he's proposing.


As for the city needing mega projects -- what a joke. We need anything but. Remember the replica of New Orleans that was supposed to be built on the port's Bickerdike Pier? The actual Port of Montreal kept repeating how badly they needed that pier, but the city kept insisting Montreal would die without it. The list goes on and on... Thank god we never built the Expos a stadium, they would have moved anyway and now it turns out their few star players were on steroids.

[lauramatsue]

I hope they end up doing whatever they want to do

much better than having a shithole like the one pictured above in our city

why do you waste so much of your life posting on a forum where you have nothing interesting to say, are hardly acknowledged, and when you are it's someone pointing out what a douchebag you are? did you have a really shitty childhood?

[pablo]

Remember the replica of New Orleans that was supposed to be built on the port's Bickerdike Pier? The actual Port of Montreal kept repeating how badly they needed that pier, but the city kept insisting Montreal would die without it. The list goes on and on... Thank god we never built the Expos a stadium, they would have moved anyway and now it turns out their few star players were on steroids.

back in the days my father had this really awesome project for the old port with his associate but they went with cardinal's shitty plans... he only told me recently and i ignored that fact for most of my life, but i've always hated the old port because there's no fucking water... we live on an island and we have yet to develop some sort of relationship with the river and it's right there, 5 minutes from downtown and we're not making that link... anyway, what they proposed was something that looked much more like the seine in paris... bring it back to what the port looked like in the late 1800's, ther water was right by de la commune... basically, you could see the river from notre-dame...

that's a shitty picture right there, i have a better hard copy here somewhere... anyway, sort of an idea...

[Louis]

yeah this city is moronic. I used to love wandering around the old port as a teen in the 80s, it felt like a time machine. the "Old Port" they made in the late 80s is typical crappy 80s festival-area design, unoriginal, bland, annoying. It was the height of irony when Bourque wanted some mega theme park at the Port, complete with a replica of New Orleans' French Quarter -- even after Katrina, New Orleans is about a gazillion trillion billion times better at preserving heritage than we are.

really I have zero positive to say about city hall, montreal urban planning and heritage etc. so I'll stop, unless I can think of a solution...

[pablo]

solution #1: put urban planners at the head of the urban planning department.

[l'eminence grise]

well i did read that the developer specifically said no wal-mart, that no one wants wal-mart. which i mention because wal-mart was name-dropped above.

not for the plan. just clarifying that one point.

[Louis]

wow, that was fast -- maybe there's hope for major changes to this project. when it was first announced they made a point of saying walmart would be an anchor tenant, and that downtowners "deserve" access to such big stores like the suburbanites have.

maybe it'll be costco instead of walmart...  either way it's hard to trust this developer, especially if he keeps changing his supposedly well-thought-out plan!

[jack o.a.t.m.o.n.]

Walmart ruined my hometown.

[squelchpalace]

they have axed the walmart idea.....but not the big box store proposal.....so it could be best buy, costco.....any number of things......

[jack o.a.t.m.o.n.]

Yeah I saw that. I was just throwing it out there as anecdotal evidence of the jihad we should be having against those fuckers.

They open up shop and within two years the downtown area had been completely gutted. People are poor there. They can't just say 'oh I won't go to the cheaper place for ethical reasons.' It was even harder on the surrounding fishing villages.

[pablo]

no more fishing on ste-catherine...

[razor shines]

It'll be interesting to see what comes of all this.  The Dix 30 is an absolute monstrocity (typical American style outlet mall that resembles Marche Central, the mall where the Hippodrome parking lot used to be, etc...), but it is kind of amazing to see how that project seems to have created (or fused together) a number of sprawling residential developments that did not even exist five years ago.  Its like Brossard never ends now and reminds me a lot of the Lowell, MA/Nashua, NH sprawl.  It really makes you wonder what they could possibly have in mind for this project.

What really blows my mind is that there is apparently an entire completed western extention of the Blue Line that runs from Snowdon metro out to the West Island (along with "stations") that they never built above ground access to for "political" reasons.  What's the deal with that?  The city would be much better served using the billions that will be invested in this project making extentions to the metro.

[Louis]

What really blows my mind is that there is apparently an entire completed western extention of the Blue Line that runs from Snowdon metro out to the West Island (along with "stations") that they never built above ground access to for "political" reasons.  What's the deal with that?  The city would be much better served using the billions that will be invested in this project making extentions to the metro.

where did you read this? any truth to the rumour? it seems it would not have been so cheap to dig ten or more miles of tunnel, nor could I imagine they did it without anyone noticing.

[pablo]

What really blows my mind is that there is apparently an entire completed western extention of the Blue Line that runs from Snowdon metro out to the West Island (along with "stations") that they never built above ground access to for "political" reasons.  What's the deal with that?  The city would be much better served using the billions that will be invested in this project making extentions to the metro.

uuhhh... dunno where you heard that but i'd need proof to believe that...

[feckless lout]

you know, in the context of this city's extensive Corrupt Municipal Megaproject genre, this one is extremely benign. they seem to be bending over backwards to make concessions to the anti-growth crowd: LEED certification, no wal-mart even though one would make sense, the incredibly expensive moving of historical buildings, and lots more mixed-use commercial and residential zones of the kind beloved by young urbanites enamored of their leisure time.

i think a lot of people in this thread should admit (at least to themselves) that they oppose this project not because of anything specific about it, but rather because
a) they oppose development and economic growth in general, and
b) they need something to do.

[oblio]

iuhope st henri stays indie

[pablo]

what you seem to understand backwards is that growth isn't a one-way street: zone, build, make money...

[bunny]

i'll finally be able to save on gas instead of driving to dix30

they already have a costco on bridge street, i doubt they'll build another one
they've got great Hot Dogs!

[squelchpalace]

you know, in the context of this city's extensive Corrupt Municipal Megaproject genre, this one is extremely benign. they seem to be bending over backwards to make concessions to the anti-growth crowd: LEED certification, no wal-mart even though one would make sense, the incredibly expensive moving of historical buildings, and lots more mixed-use commercial and residential zones of the kind beloved by young urbanites enamored of their leisure time.

i think a lot of people in this thread should admit (at least to themselves) that they oppose this project not because of anything specific about it, but rather because
a) they oppose development and economic growth in general, and
b) they need something to do.

hmmmmm.......seems as though yr. guilty of speaking with authority, not having done a little research into the proposal/developers.........all of these "concessions" are necessary hoops they know they have to jump through in order to push this project through.......like handing a dog a bone then knocking it over the head with a baseball bat......development is not inherently bad.....this proposal is........monopolies are bad......Devimco has a monopoly on levelling and rebuilding an extraordinarily large piece of land........more voices are needed if this proposed development is going to be anything other than blighted landscape..........