Cote St. Paul's main drag on the move

Nothing ever happens in Cote St. Paul. Someone robbed a church there a couple of years ago (man bites dog! - Chimples) and today was another notable exception as Mario Rametta's laundromat was apparently torched.
   The main strip, Laurendeau is is known for.. well nothing much really. There's the iconic (please don't use that shtoopid word!- Chimples) Silver Dragon Cafe at one end and the Dairy Queen near the other.
   Solid bookends, but disarray in between where you have the regular poor-neighbourhood high street with its vacuum cleaner shops and 600 square foot bikini stores.
  There are, however, a bunch of newly-built condos which seem to be working well, even tho many are still on sale, reasonably priced at about $250,000 for a two-bedroomer.
  So nobody knows who torched Mario Rametta's duplex. Rametta has owned the property since at least 2001 when the Caisse Pop gave him a $180,000 mortgage on the joint (whittled down to $150,000 a few years later). So he doesn't have much debt on the books.
  The 200-square-metre property (don't think that includes the possibly-very-handy adjacent empty lot) was evaluated at $281,000 in 2007 and $387,000 in 2012, it includes a duplex built in 1916.
  But I wouldn't be shocked to see condos get built there.
  There's not much character currently to that area, but that's nothing that a little bit of art invaders couldn't fix and hopefully the Silver Dragon Cafe will still be there. The join has one of the last-remaining classic neon signs in town, even though it's not currently functional. Other cities would pay them to fix it, but we're not other cities, alas). That Chinese restaurant building is perennially for sale but its current ad on MLS for $400,000 doesn't seem to work properly right now
  The area isn't the most glamorous spot in town but it could offer rare value, as vendors might be getting impatient during the current temporary closure of the St. Remi Tunnel. That tunnel under the canal is a lifeline to the strip and it being cut off might lead to some bargains.
  The creation of a new intersection at Gladstone and Laurendeau - complete with the demolition of the overpass south of the tunnel is also very cool, something we lobbied for here earlier.