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| The new Planetarium opens in Spring 2013 |
The City of Montreal’s
decision to replace the downtown Planetarium with a
replacement facility 10 kilometres east near the
Olympic Stadium is not looking like a stratospheric success.
The new Rio Tinto Planetarium, now being built by the
Decarel construction firm, was originally supposed to cost
the city $9 million but that has risen to a staggering $25.7 million.
The city's hit on the overall project has skyrocketed while the combined contribution from the federal and provincial
government of $18.5 million hasn't budged and nor has the $3.8 million that Rio Tinto
is investing.
Meanwhile the city has decided that the former Dow Planetarium
on one-time
Chaboillez Square
in Griffintown cannot be demolished.
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The original plan was to put the Planetarium atop
the roof of the Dow Brewery at Peel and Notre Dame. |
The city is having trouble selling the property, which is evaluated at almost $12
million, and for which it is asking for just $1.8 million because they will not let the new owners demolish the old Planetarium.
The city has rejected the one offer it received, from a cooking school.
The increased costs incurred by the new Planetarium are the
result of a failure to budget for several pieces of equipment, plan an architectural
contest and budget for other events.
The new Planetarium budget was to cost even more but several equipment upgrades were cancelled to keep costs from further rising skywards.
One thing about the old Planetarium that I haven't seen addressed anywhere: according to articles from the time, the Dow Breweries donated the land to the city on the condition that it remain in use as a Planetarium.
So if indeed that is in the small print of the deed, the city’s failure to keep its promise is not just a
moral lapse, but could also be technically deemed illegal and could cost the city even more if it leads to a civil suit.
Provincial
legislation is usually required to forgive cases where deed conditions are
violated in this manner but there have been
cases in the past where the city has had to pay through the nose for such violations.
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| Old Planetarium - no demolition allowed |
The city had been hankering for a Planetarium since
1931, and the original plan was to put a flying-saucer-type facility
right atop of the brewery building at Peel and Notre Dame. But it was eventually built nearby for $1.2 million and opened
February 14, 1965.
The Dow Brewery was flying high in the mid-60s before it was
put out of business by allegations that its brew had killed between 16 and 20 people in
Quebec City, as they allegedly put cobalt in their brew to make it frothier.
Construction on the new Planetarium started in June 2011 and
is expected to be completed in 2013 and it meant to be a big feature in the city's 375th birthday on 2017.
Organizers are expecting an ambitious 300,000 visitors to the new facility, triple the
number it received when it was downtown.
To his credit, Richard Bergeron, who
leads the Projet Montreal opposition party, has been steadfast in his
opposition and indeed many Montrealers surely wondered why it would be necessary to do away with the old facility when the trial balloons started appearing in the Journal
de Montreal about a decade ago.
I do not know how strict the rules are that prevent it from being demolished, but I know that Heritage Montreal leader Dinu Bumbaru is in favour of maintaining it. That classification might be worth reviewing in light of the fact that there's little upside in keeping it.
Many thanks to the excellent Pierre Andre Normandin of La Presse for working this file. 1, 2,
I like the old Planetarium and miss it. The faux-wood wall cladding, bilungual exit signs, and general old-school everything.
ReplyDeleteToo bad.
Howdy!
ReplyDeleteThe deaths were due to 16 times the amount of cobalt sulfate being added to the beer. More information here, here, here, here, and here.
Rio Tinto is the correct spelling.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame that the project cost has to triple. Are these real extras or money in someones pocket? It is criminal.
Greatwork piecing this together Kristian.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Dow beer scandal of the mid-60s, I will quote a few excerpts from Shirley E. Woods, Jr.'s 1983 book entitled "The Molson Saga, 1763-1983" (Avon Books of Canada, ISBN 0-380-69112-4), the topic being the controversial addition of cobalt salts to the beer brewing process for purpose of retaining the foam on freshly-poured beer:
ReplyDelete"In August 1965 several cases of alcoholic cardiomyopathy (deterioration of the heart muscles) were admitted to the Hotel
Dieu Hospital in Quebec City. During that autumn and winter a increasing number of men were admitted to the Hotel Dieu and other local hospitals suffering from the same affliction. All the patients were male, and all drank excessive amounts of beer. Nearly half of the cases subsequently died. A young intern in the cardiology department of the Hotel Dieu, Hugues Milon, became suspicious about the cause of the epidemic and did some research on his own. His findings revealed
that all of the patients had frequented taverns near the railway station and all had been drinking locally brewed Dow
beer. As soon as Milon had sufficient circumstantial evidence to link Dow beer with the cardiomyopathy epidemic, he
informed the provincial health authorities. (At about the same time, there was an outbreak of cardiomyopathy in Omaha, Nebraska.) The Quebec Minister of Health then summoned the president of Dow Breweries to his office and warned him of the situation.
"Just before midnight on 29 March 1966, Clifford Chappel, a Canadian toxicologist, received and urgent telephone call from the president of Dow Brewery. Chappel was told of the suspected poisonings, and asked to investigate whether Dow
beer was the cause. While the investigation was taking place, Dow shut down its Quebec City plant and dumped more than one million gallons of beer in the St. Lawrence. As soon as the brewing industry became aware of the possible hazard of using cobalt salts, it voluntarily ceased using the additive. In June 1966 cobalt was banned in the United States, and a month later the substance was banned in Canada.
"It was never conclusively proved that cobaltous salts were to blame for cardiomyopathy. However, it was established that if a heavy drinker was severely undernourished, cobalt might have an adverse effect on the heart. All of the victims in Quebec City were heavy drinkers--the average consumption being just over fourteen pints of beer per day--and all were undernourished. Of the fifty men admitted to hospital in Quebec City, twenty died. It should also be mentioned that when the brewers stopped using cobalt, no further cases of cardiomyopathy were reported.
"Dow reopened its brewery in Quebec City, but it was a hollow gesture. The fact that Dow had disposed of its entire stock in the river was construed by the public as an admission of guilt. Throughout the province it was whispered in the taverns that Dow was "la biere qui tue"--the beer that kills. Dow's reputation suffered, and its sales went into a decline that lasted for years. Not only was the cobalt episode a serious reverse for Dow, but it was a frightening experience for all the brewers in Canada. Because Molson's was the second most popular brand in Quebec City, the loss of life would have been even greater, had Tom Molson not resisted temptation to add cobalt salts to his brews.
"Molson's emerged unscathed from the cobalt incident and actually gained market share at Dow's expense."
@ JimP:
ReplyDeleteYes, it's the payout to Tony Accurso, the mob, and such.