Friday, November 13, 2015

Relocating to the Snowdon Theatre could stop CDN/NDG borough's long descent into Hell

  Montreal contains one borough that towers above all others but lacks in power what is has in size.
  It's an urban area so large that is would be Canada's 30th largest city in Canada if it went solo.
  Cote des Neiges/ Notre Dame de Grace is home to 165,000 residents, which ranks it large than Sudbury, Niagara Falls, Sherbrooke, Nanaimo, Fredericton, Kingston and countless other Canadian cities.
  The borough has two representatives on the city's 12-member Executive Committee, Councillor Lionel Perez and borough mayor Russell Copeman but still punches below its weight and routinely sees its needs overlooked, as seen in such fails as:
  • The highway on-ramp to the Ville Marie Expressway was demolished, never to be returned, forcing downtown-bound motorists to much-slower routes via already-congested Cote St. Luc and Decarie or through the slow city streets along St. James in St. Henri 
  • All traffic to the MUHC Vendome superhospital travels through NDG, while a route via Westmount was permitted to remain closed
  • It failed to develop Blue Bonnets, which means that massive mall tax cash revenues will instead go to TMR with its upcoming Royalmount Mall
  • It made no progress creating the long-needed Cavendish extension  
  • Massive numbers of new traffic lights have been installed through the area, making driving a headache
  • The costly Turcot interchange rebuild will move traffic to the bottom of the cliff below St. James, making life in the area noisier and more polluted 
  • It has failed to maintain the Snowdon Theatre, a property is owns but allowed to fall into disrepair and crippled a gymnastics club where hundreds of girls practiced the sport
  • Completely unable to make any progress on rehabilitating the long-deteriorating and vacant Empress Theatre
  • Authorities permitted the MUHC Superhospital at Vendome to manipulate wording in its contract to build six storeys of parking above ground, rather than below ground as planned
   Many failures were the fault of the borough alone. It allowed developer Tony Magi to build a hideous project complete with old-fashioned eyesore above-ground phone poles, while another councillor allowed 14,000 square feet of cement to be poured in the middle of a green space at Oxford Park.
   The borough administration was even corrupt and got nailed for crimes.
   Secretive meetings and dodgy land deals led to a corruption conviction against longtime councillor Saulie Zajdel. Longtime former borough mayor Michael Applebaum is soon to be tried on corruption as well. (The secretive methods continue still, by the way).
   Solutions do not seem near at hand, as councillors bicker among each other: one has grown old and cynical, another is bent on establishing a wacky personality cult and one is so fixated on bicycle paths that he wore a helmet at a city council meeting.
   The borough needs a break and there is one slam-dunk project that could easily go far to finally put it on the right track.
  The borough must move out of its bland office space at 5160 Decarie across the street to the Snowdon Theatre.
   The project would allow the landmark Snowdon Theatre to be rehabilitated and could also usher the return of the gymnasts into their proper place on the upstairs level.
   It's a no-brainer as the borough - in spite of its large population - has easily the worst town hall on the island. Compare its town hall anywhere else, such as Verdun, Westmount, Outremont, which all have impressive buildings.
  The borough currently rents its offices from a numbered company.
  It already owns the Snowdon Theatre, so there's not much involved in the switch.
  Once installed in the Snowdon Theatre the borough could then imitate the mayor of Montreal and order a section of the nearby highway covered up.
  Covering a section of the Decarie above Queen Mary would help return Snowdon to the glory it once knew before it was demolished in the mid-60s by the Decarie Expressway project. 

13 comments:

  1. Don't forget the long neglected Empress Theater (aka Cinema V), which has sat abandoned and deteriorating for nearly a quarter of a century in the heart of NDG. Just like the Snowdon theater, the CDN/NDG borough is much to blame here.

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  2. Thanks! I have added that one now!

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  3. In the case of the Empress theater there is a "proposed" project, but the way it's being handled by the borough, I suspect foul play a foot.

    In 2011 the borough seized the building and evicted community organizer who were working (albeit slowly) to renovate and reopen the theater. Then a year later voted against an organization who had a viable plan to turn it into a community center and arts theater right away, but instead offered to hand it over to Cinema NDG. That is, once they could get secure funding for the project. It's now over three years later and they still can't get their act together, and meanwhile the borough just keeps indefinitely granting them extensions. The building is just sitting and deteriorating.

    Likely the borough will sell the building and land to condo developers next year, after proclaiming "Oh well, we tried...!" (while in reality they've essentially sabotaged efforts to get it reopened, just so they could sell it). I see the same thing happening for the Snowdon theater.

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  4. As I have mentioned in earlier relevant posts, all of these delays to renovate and improve the aforementioned properties are nothing more than ploys geared to allow deterioration to reach the stage where demolition is the only remaining alternative.

    As long as the perpetrators are LEGALLY able to drag these issues through the courts indefinitely, nothing will change.

    Property laws need to be upgraded into the 21st century in order to prevent the ongoing abuse with specific deadlines for settlement enforced. No "extensions" permitted.

    If a lease, for example, has a definite termination date, why cannot this be applied to building renovations?

    How many of our vintage theatres have actually managed to survive intact (e.g. the Rialto, the Outremont) and what were the conditions that enabled them to do so?

    Mayor Denis Coderre should be questioned about this topic on CTV's "Talk of the Town".

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  5. " ...another is bent on establishing a wacky personality cult and one is so fixated on bicycle paths that he wore a helmet at a city council meeting. "

    Hey what's wrong with wearing a bicycle helmet to a meeting? I wonder who that was? They will get my vote! I trust bicycle people.

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  6. Kristian you have written so many great articles on Coolopolis. I am a constant reader of your writings. This one affects me deeply. I practically grew up in the Snowdon theatre, though my home was north and east of that beautiful new area. It was a superb theatre and in s remarkably unique section of Montreal. Even though the Snowdon was a little far from where I lived, by the time I could get into movies, showing my Government Registration Certificate proving that I was sixteen years of age, I owned a nice little Chevy to take me there at least once a week, unless I wanted to see the movie twice. Your article reawakens too many sad memories and notably illustrates why I chose, most reluctantly, to leave Montreal. It wasn’t only the depressing influence of separatism. I’m completely bilingual and could manage to live with that depressing attitude that had already infiltrated and overtaken so many of my much revered French speaking buddies: including beloved French family members No, I chose to leave because I could see failings in the developing attitude of the environment about me.
    I wonder how many of your fans suffer the deep depressing feeling I suffer, almost every day, that I no longer live in Montreal - the most wonderful "Cité Unique".
    Your narratives in your captivating and interesting web site are most exciting and stimulating, but every once in a while you hit me with a zinger causing sad memories. This one about the Snowdon and the Empress is one of them.

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  7. Hopefully that Royalmount super-duper-mega mall will never see the light of day. Those types of big box farms are starting to flounder across North America. Look at the one in Kirkland - more than half is vacant. It's the wrong type of development for the area.

    The borough hall moving into the Snowdon theatre is a great idea.

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  8. What I fail to see is how a super-uber-mega-mall is supposed to be success, if it's situated just a few blocks away from the failed Decarie Square Mall.

    Decarie Square has been suffering from dead mall syndrome as far back as the mid-80's. Today the place is completely empty. If people don't shop there, what makes anyone think they'll shop just up the street.

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  9. The problem with these landmark and theatre closures and endlessly delayed renovation promises is that the story is allowed to disappear into the background until suddenly, before anyone has a chance to do anything about it, the demolition crews show up and it's too late.

    So-called "developers" (condo monstrosity builders) know very well exactly what tactics can be used to achieve their dreams, confident in the knowledge that the city is only too thrilled to allow another new source of tax revenue to be built, consequences be damned.

    Why aren't groups such as Heritage Montreal more vocal in the media? Why aren't municipal politicians confronted more often until substantial action is taken to preserve what will inevitably be considered a sad loss of our history?

    I also suspect that the original residents in the relevant districts who were initially outraged over the lack of action have long since moved away, replaced by new immigrants who are either clueless or are simply apathetic to an issue about which they have absolutely no memory.

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  10. Not only would it be close to Decarie Square, but also Rockland, and Lucerne Square (formerly TMR shopping centre) which has just been rebuilt into a small-box mall. It will have a two-storey Provigo Le Marche and rumor is that the Loblaws on the St. Laurent side of the Met will close. It would also be enough to interfere with Place Vertu. Bottom line is, Royalmount will be a disaster. TMR is just licking its chops at the property tax revenue and doesn't give a crap about much else. Because of the way municipalities are structured, property tax is like a narcotic addiction.

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  11. I can only assume that the property values around Decarie Circle are lower than at other alternative locations, thus a tempting target for "developers" who see nothing but dollar signs in their greedy eyes.

    Contrary to the lies told by slick, faceless, promo clowns, the entire "Royalmount Mall Project" would only add a staggering amount of extra traffic to an already unacceptably congested district which has been relentlessly aggravated by the ever-delayed and long-promised Cavendish Boulevard Extension; a roadway envisaged as far back as 1938.

    Is the notion of insanely-priced, multiple condos towering over Decarie Circle supposed to generate enthusiasm among the general public? Furthermore, a great big water-slide is somehow supposed to entice us all and "bring in the crowds", ignoring the fact that it would only be practical for the all-too-brief summer months.

    Whatever happened to the previous plan to build a mall at the northeast sector of Decarie Circle on the site of the former Continental Can complex? This idea seems to have vanished without a trace yet the land continues to lie empty.

    How many additional, NEW malls does Montreal actually need? Are the successful ones not sufficient? How about instead upgrading the underused ones already in existence: those which mysteriously have been allowed to fail such as Decarie Square, Cavendish Mall, and Le Bazar?

    Such pie-in-the-sky mega-projects like the proposed Royalmount are often dazzle followed by fizzle. How many know that the original plan for 1968's Plaza Cote des Neiges included high rise apartment buildings in the rear where today the outdoor parking lot exists?

    Thankfully, those Légaré Avenue-facing high-rises were never built, presumably partly due to fears of excessive traffic congestion around the neighbouring streets.

    It has long been proven that adding more highways and additional, unnecessary mega-projects which encourage the use of private vehicles creates more problems than they solve, yet tax-hungry politicians never seem to understand this or--worse--could care less since most of them likely don't live nearby to suffer the consequences.

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  12. The former Continental Can had signage that it was to become a SmartCentre with Walmart as its main anchor. Instead, Walmart chose the former Costco (former Woolco) at what used to be Le Bazar*. That was a pre-emptive strike against Target which briefly lived at Vertu.

    It was reported in the news a few weeks ago that one of the representatives of CarbonLeo, the developer who wants to build the Royalmount monstrosity was charged with illegally lobbying the TMR council. Shocking. Shocking, I tell ya.

    How many more malls do we need? ZERO. Bricks & mortar stores are on the downfall, save for hyper/superrmarkets and pharmacies. I plan on repeating what I did last year and do > 90% of my Christmas shopping online at my convenience.

    * Le Bazar was once an actual enclosed mall. It was dark and had brown tiling everywhere. I remember it well along with the Jadis grocery store. Today it's just 5-6 big box stores stuck together.

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  13. Gravenor,
    Present yourself in next elections... I'll vote for you.
    Just keep the common sense common.
    I can't understand why we elected these people...

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