We've been trying to figure out this big announced remaking of Griffintown by a Quebec City company whose website is still under construction. (How are you going to do a $1.3 billion project when you can't even do a $143 website?) The idea is to put some moneymaking stuff down in this historical district and toss in the usual guilt payments to the poor in the form of shitbox aka affordable housing. Of course they'll try to demolish and evict many current tenants quite happily living in the area now in order to accomodate the usual mix of big-promising developers and frothing-at-the-mouth socialist housing entitlement set. Looking at the newly released document leaves many questions unanswered about what gets demolished and what doesn't. There's promises to build a new street, covered walkways, a tramway, a movie theatre, and an alien launching pad for the Raelians (we added that last one in, but it's about as likely as some of the others). Some at Coolopolis Towers suspect that this will end badly, that they'll kick people out and the developers will run out of money as they always do and leave everybody miserable and the place looking like Dresden in 1946, sorta like what happened in the Overdale affair. We'll have a look at the plans again tomorrow to see if we can figure out what is slated to be demolished and what isn't. 
The half-green circles indicate that those buildings on Mountain won't be torn down.
The black lines are new roads. The red dotted line suggests a covered pedestrian walkway on Shannon and Anne.
Much of the development is slated for that area West of where the Church one stood. There's not a whole lot there now. The document also suggests that the Ecole de Technologie Superieur will play a big role in the planning of this stuff. They have a campus on Notre Dame and Peel and are already putting in a dorm at Mountain and Notre Dame. The ETS people have a reputation in the area as standoffish hicks. We trust them about as much as we trust Marty the Peeping Tom.
2 comments:
I agree whole heartedly with much of what you are expressing K. This wouldn't be the first far flung project for the neighbourhood. Back in the 60's, Drapeau was apt at directing public attention to fantastic future plans, effectively distracting the public eye from the continuing degradation of what was once a bustling community full of vitality. Now that Griffintown is all but extinct we've seen several new scenarios of urban utopias. They look more like dystopia to me. The ETS has played a huge role in destroying the area with its hermetically sealed community which offers little to the surrounding population other than graceless imposing architecture. I certainly wouldn't count on them to spearhead any decent development for the old Griff. Tremblay's plans for the neighbourhood are as equally risible as were his predecessors.
I suppose politicians need some carrots to seduce the public into believing that positive action is being taken. Meanwhile, it is clear that when the economic prerogatives make rebuilding the Griff a priority for developers; the highest bidder will be given this fiefdom to despoil.
Your first picture refers to the old version of the project. The new version, in the same document, has a lot less commercial large surface.
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