Tuesday, February 06, 2018

NDG future landmark awaits, as big chunk of prime land waits to be redeveloped

    A future west end landmark across from the superhospital could be on the horizon, as a 30,000 square foot property can be yours for just $7.5 million.
   The future building could be commercial or residential and reach up to eight floors if council and residents don't object to switching the zoning to allow it to go over the proscribed three.
   The 10 buildings on the west side of Decarie south of Crowley  would need to be demolished and whatever residents inside set packing in a river of tears.
   A small group of residents recently blocked a proposed grocery store nearby at the southwest corner of Claremont and De Maisonneuve. The Coderre administration chose not to overrule the opposition, so it's possible that a project along those lines might find opposition.
   The sale revives speculation as to whether a major new hospital brings significant economic growth to a neighbourhood. Many assumed the superhospital would turn its area into a booming hub, while others pointed out that older hospitals weren't magnets for lots of commercial activity.
  In this case the property has been on sale for at least a couple of years with no takers, so nobody is looking at the deal with dollar signs in their eyes as of yet.
  The large plot of land on sale could be expanded by purchasing the adjacent buildings, which include a couple of warehouses owned by Rosia La Serra-Montesano and Toni Montesano of NDD, whose 550 square metre property is evaluated at $420,000.
   The land at 990 and 1000 Decarie could be added to the mix if you could strike a deal with owner Stephen Abbott of Kingston Ontario. Or one could go even further and gobble up Francois St. Laurent's two buildings, each evaluated at about $640,000.
   The block ends at a Mazda dealership which spans 4,600 square metres and is evaluated at $3.5 million, although it seems a long shot that the thriving business would be willing to shove off and move along.
    The future development, if there ever is one, could generate much excitement as NDG has no landmark structures so anything built on this property would best be something eye-catching.         
   Montreal has no buildings with glass elevators, so a building with such a thing could be amazing, as would be one with elevators that go sideways.
 
 Some examples of buildings we'd like to see built on the site.

   




3 comments:

  1. Any new residential buildings that close to the hospital would have to be soundproofed, for who would want to be disturbed by the inevitable sound of ambulance sirens? If no such soundproofing were included, then anyone considering to move around there would have no justification to complain, just as those living near the airport constantly do.

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  2. As a former Montrealer, born in Toronto but lived in MTL from '62 to 91, I find your website very interesting and am always looking forward to seeing another topic.
    Your articles contains unique past events which I think are largely unknown to most English speaking Montrealers.
    Thank you for you dilligence and hard work on this very interesting website!
    Derek

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  3. Incidentally, regarding N.D.G.'s development, the last (if not THE last) streets to be completed in the district were the sections of Randall and West Hill Avenues between Somerled and Cote St. Luc Road. These were laid out through the original Falardeau cadastre 155 after it was sold and eventually subdivided to be built upon.

    Likely due to the Depression, the announcement in the Gazette of January 14, 1930, page 5 (heading: "Council Approves New Road") did not immediately initiate the building of housing there. Indeed, it is much later--as registered in Lovell's 1950 Directory--that the first actual addresses are listed on Randall and West Hill in that sector. Lovell's 1952 edition indicates the first addresses on Randall north of Fielding. Note that actual construction would logically have occurred in the year prior to a directory's publication. Exact building dates can be researched via city archives for those seeking further data.

    The unusual alignment of the original farmers' boundary lines of the Falardeau property (and its previous owner D. Decarie) created an aberration whereby both Randall and West Hill converged at an angle southward from Cote St. Luc in such a way that the creation of Biermans Avenue (initially named Mazurette) was necessary in order to avoid a problematic narrowing of available lots to be built upon; the end result being that a small stretch of West Hill Avenue runs north from Somerled but then splits off from Randall at Biermans around an oddly-placed green space.

    Nit-picking for the obsessive-minded? Perhaps, yet nevertheless just another curiosity for those who have often wondered about the why and the wherefore in this district where, by the way, Chester Avenue was originally slated to merge with Cote St. Luc Road but never did since the former Marymount High School (now Ecole St. Luc) was built there instead and a plan to extend West Hill south to Terrebonne never materialized either as Somerled School (now Ecole Marc-Favreau) was constructed in its path. The previously-named Sandfield Avenue became part of Fielding Avenue thus completing the east-west thoroughfares.

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