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J'ai pensé que ca serait une bonne idée d'avoir un fil qui a comme sujet le crime à Montréal. http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=1697377&sponsor=

http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/2010/09/16/news/tacofying-city-hall/ YESSSSSSSS PLEEEEEEEEAAAAAASE!

http://nymag.com/homedesign/urbanliving/2012/hudson-yards/ Atop the 1,300-foot office tower, soon to rise at 33rd Street and Tenth Avenue, by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse From 0 to 12 Million Square Feet In a few weeks, construction begins on New York’s largest development ever. Hudson Yards is handsome, ambitious, and potentially full of life. Should we care that it’s also a giant slab of private property? An exclusive preview. By Justin Davidson Published Oct 7, 2012 ShareThis On a Friday afternoon in September, a conclave of architects and real-estate executives gathers in a hotel conference room to look over plans for Manhattan’s largest remaining chunk of emptiness. Hudson Yards, the railroad depot that stretches from Tenth Avenue to the Hudson River, and from 30th to 33rd Street, barely registers on the mental map of most New Yorkers. Look down from a neighboring window, and you see only a pit full of trains hazed with their diesel fumes. The planners’ view, though, takes in sugarplum dreams of the city’s shiny next wing: an $800 million concrete roof over the yards, and above it the country’s largest and densest real-estate development: 12 million square feet of *offices, shops, movie theaters, gyms, hotel rooms, museum galleries, and open space, and 5,000 apartments, all packed into 26 acres. In the first, $6 billion phase—scheduled for completion by late 2017—the tallest tower will top the Empire State Building, and even the shortest will have a penthouse on the 75th floor. The people in the conference room can visualize that future in high-resolution detail. On the screen, digital couples stroll among trees pruned to cubical perfection. A chain of glowing towers garlands the skyline, and tiny figures stroll onto a deck hanging nearly a quarter-mile in the air. Architects discuss access points, sidewalk widths, ceiling heights, flower beds, and the qualities of crushed-stone pathways. You could almost forget that none of this exists yet—until one architect points to a lozenge-shaped skyscraper and casually, with a twist of his wrist, remarks that he’s thinking of swiveling it 90 degrees. The Related Companies, the main developer of the site, has called this meeting so that the designers of the various buildings can finally talk to each other, instead of just to the client. I’m getting the first look at the details at the same time some of the participants are. Suddenly, after years of desultory negotiations and leisurely design, the project has acquired urgency: Ground-breaking on the first tower will take place in the coming weeks. There’s a high-octane crew in the room: William Pedersen, co-founder of the high-rise titans Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates; David Childs, partner at the juggernaut Skidmore Owings and Merrill; Elizabeth Diller, front woman for the cerebral boutique Diller Scofidio + Renfro; *David Rockwell, a virtuoso of showbiz and restaurant design; Howard Elkus, from the high-end shopping-center specialists Elkus Manfredi; and landscape architect Thomas Woltz, the only member of the group new to New York real-estate politics. Their task is to compose a neighborhood from scratch. The success of Hudson Yards depends on the question: Can a private developer manufacture a complete and authentic high-rise neighborhood in a desolate part of New York? “This isn’t just a project; it’s an extension of the city,” says Stephen Ross, Related’s founder and chairman. New York has always grown in nibbles and crumbs, and only occasionally in such great whale-gulps of real estate. In the richest, most layered sections of the city, each generation’s new buildings spring up among clumps of older ones, so that freshness and tradition coexist. A project of this magnitude, concocted around a conference table, could easily turn out to be a catastrophe. The centrally planned district has its success stories—most famously, Rockefeller Center. Coordinated frenzies of building also produced Park Avenue, Battery Park City, and the current incarnation of Times Square. But this enterprise is even more ambitious than any of those, and more potentially transformative than the ongoing saga of the World Trade Center. New York has no precedent for such a dense and complex neighborhood, covering such a vast range of uses, built in one go. That makes this Ross’s baby. Hundreds of architects, engineers, consultants, planners, and construction workers will contribute to the finished product. Oxford Properties Group has partnered with Related, and the city dictated much of the basic arrangement. But in the end, how tightly the new superblocks are woven into the city fabric, how organic their feel, and how bright their allure will depend on the judgment and taste of a billionaire whose aesthetic ambitions match the site’s expanse, and who slips almost unconsciously from we to I. “We went out and selected great architects and then created a whole five-acre plaza,” Ross says. “People will have never seen such a world-class landscaping project. I can’t tell you what that plaza will look like, but what I visualize is a modern-day Trevi Fountain. It’s going to be classical and unique.” The best clue to what he has in mind isn’t in Rome, but at Columbus Circle. Ross lives and works in the Time Warner Center, which Related built, and if you imagine the complex blown out to five times its size, you begin to get a sense of what’s coming at Hudson Yards: crowds flowing from home to boutique, hotel to subway, office to spa, concert to restaurant—and all that activity threaded around and through a curving plaza equipped with fountains and a very tall monument, as yet unchosen. The Time Warner Center brought profitable liveliness to Columbus Circle, the once moribund, now vibrant hinge between midtown and the Upper West Side. But massive as it is, the Time Warner Center is dainty by comparison. Hudson Yards circa 2017 1. This office tower, by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, will become Coach headquarters. 2. Apartments by Diller Scofidio +Renfro, joined by David Rockwell: condos on top, rentals below. 3. The flagship office building, also by KPF: 1,300 feet high. 4. The curvy multiuse tower by David Childs contains a hotel, condominiums, and a big Equinox gym. 5. The shopping arcade (please don't call it the mall). 6.The Culture Shed: still unrevealed, but a great big space for traveling exhibits and other events. Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Unnumbered buildings (the western half of the development) have yet to be designed. Photo: Map by Jason Lee The view from the High Line. Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Photo: Rendering by Visualhouse Start on the High Line, at West 30th Street near Tenth Avenue. At the moment, the landscaped section peters out here, but the old elevated railway continues, forking both east and west to form the southern border of Hudson Yards. Eventually, you’ll be able to continue your stroll beneath the canopy of an office tower housing the headquarters of the leather-goods company Coach. It’s a tricky spot, and the interaction of city street and raised park forces the architecture to perform some fancy steps. The building genuflects toward Tenth Avenue on muscular concrete legs. Coach’s unit reaches out toward the High Line, and the crown greets the skyline at a jaunty tilt. With all its connections and contortions, the tower, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, assembles its identity out of the complexities of city life. “My whole career has been about taking buildings that are inherently autonomous and getting them to become social gestures,” remarks Pedersen. Head up a couple of blocks from Coach’s future headquarters, and at West 33rd Street, another KPF tower tapers from vast hoped-for trading floors to a jagged peak 1,300 feet up. A state-of-the-art office building these days requires huge open layouts and thick bundles of elevator shafts, which tend to give it the natural grace of a hippopotamus thigh. But look up: Here, the design artfully disguises the two towers’ bulk by making them seem dramatically foreshortened, as if they were speeding toward the sky. One slopes toward the river, the other in the direction of midtown, parted like stalks of corn in a breeze. The cone of space between them draws sunlight to the ground and leaves a welcome break in the city’s increasingly crowded skyline. With any luck, you should be able to stand at the foot of these towers and feel sheltered but not squashed. It would have been far easier to wall the development off and let each tower stand in isolated splendor. Instead, planners have tried to soften the borders of their domain. That’s not just civic-mindedness; it’s good business. If Hudson Yards is going to be a truly urban place, it will have to lure people who neither work nor live there but who come because everyone else does. The development will have two major magnets, one for commerce, food, and entertainment, the other for that primal necessity of New York life: culture. Related is pinning a lot of financial optimism on a five-floor, two-block-long retail extravaganza that links the two KPF towers, rather like the Time Warner Center shops, only bigger, busier, sunnier, and more tightly knit to the city. “We don’t want this to feel like a mall,” insists its architect, Howard Elkus. Pedestrian passageways cut through the building, extending the streets indoors, and a succession of great glass walls turn window-shopping into a spectator sport. The liveliness engine is on the fourth floor, where a collection of informal but high-end food outlets curated by Danny Meyer looks out over the central plaza—“Eataly on steroids” is how one Related executive describes it. Above that are more expensive restaurants and a ten-screen multiplex. Stroll out the western side of the shopping center toward the central plaza, walk diagonally across to 30th Street, halfway between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues, and you come to the most intriguing and mysterious element of Hudson Yards: the Culture Shed. Having set aside a parcel of land for cultural use, the city put out a call for ideas. Elizabeth Diller and David Rockwell answered with an amalgam of architectural and institutional innovations: a flexible gallery complex to accommodate traveling exhibits and nomadic performing events. Together, they designed an enormous trusslike shell that could fit over the galleries or roll out like a shipyard gantry to enclose a vast performance space. The city refuses to discuss architectural details, how the still-theoretical organization will function, or who would pay to build and operate it. But it’s easy to imagine it being used for film premieres and high-definition broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera or as a permanent home for Fashion Week, which now camps out in tents. The Culture Shed can give Hudson Yards the highbrow legitimacy and cutting-edge cool it needs to become an integral part of New York, and also create a cultural corridor running from the Whitney Museum at Gansevoort Street (now under construction), through Chelsea’s gallery district, and up to Lincoln Center. The project may be in the wishful-thinking stage—it could still get scaled back or dumbed down, or it could vanish altogether. But it does have one crucial booster: the Related Companies. “The Culture Shed is critically important,” says Jay Cross, the executive who is running the Hudson Yards project. “We’re going to be major supporters because we want and need to see it come to fruition.” Hudson Yards is getting much more from the city than just the Culture Shed. While planners keep working out ways to weld the complex to its environs, the West Side has already begun to embrace its coming addition. New rental towers have sprouted in the West Thirties and burly office buildings will soon rise along Ninth and Tenth Avenues. “There are communities around us—Hell’s Kitchen, Midtown South, West Chelsea, New Jersey to the west—that if we do a great job are just naturally going to flow in and populate that space,” says Cross. The site as a whole is a yawning pit, not so much a blank slate as an empty socket, surrounded by amenities and infrastructure just waiting to be plugged in. Hudson River Park runs along the western edge (set off by Twelfth Avenue), the High Line spills in from the south, and the future Hudson Park and Boulevard will swoop down from the north. The No. 7 subway-line extension is on the way to completion, the Javits Center is being overhauled, and maybe one day Moynihan Station will even get built. In all, $3 billion in taxpayer-funded improvements encircle the Related fiefdom—not including city tax abatements. “Where else have you ever seen this kind of public money for infrastructure to service a whole new development, in the heart of the city, with that much land and no obstacles?” Ross asks. His vocal enthusiasm for Mitt Romney and the Republican Party’s small-*government credo evidently hasn’t curbed his appreciation for public support. Although it’s the next mayor who will cut the first ribbon, in the long run Hudson Yards may well be the grandest and most dramatic piece of Michael Bloomberg’s legacy. It’s been on the city’s to-do list for almost a decade, ever since Bloomberg hoped to draw the 2012 Olympics to New York with promises of a West Side stadium. The fact that London won the games was a disappointment to him but a stroke of luck for the West Side, scuttling what would have been a disastrous stadium plan, while at the same time calling attention to the value of the real estate above the tracks. Eager for space to put up high-rises and now prompted by a big hole on Manhattan’s western flank, the city focused on a rezoning that is gradually pulling midtown’s center of gravity westward. There are two ways to conceive such a monster project. One is for a single architectural overlord to shape the whole shebang, as Raymond Hood did at Rockefeller Center. Steven Holl, whose offices overlook Hudson Yards and who has designed two similarly gargantuan complexes in China, submitted an entry that might have resulted in a work of thrilling coherence, with the same sensibility imbuing every detail, from door handles to office blocks. But the auteur development also risks yielding a place of oppressive uniformity, where each aesthetic miscalculation is multiplied many times over. Related chose the second option: recruiting an ensemble of brand-name designers. That approach emulates a sped-up version of New York’s gradual, lot-by-lot evolution; the danger is that it can produce a jumble. “Sometimes architectural vitality leads to messiness, or varying degrees of quality, and we’re trying to avoid that,” acknowledges Cross. “Every building is going to be best in class. That’s the common thread.” But bestness is not actually a unifying concept, and when the city held the competition to award the development rights in 2008, the Related entry failed to wow the city, the public, or the critics. “With a drop-dead list of consultants, contributors, collaborators, and anyone else who could be thrown into the mix … [the company] has covered all possible bases with something dreadful for everybody. This is not planning, it’s pandering,” wrote the critic Ada Louise Huxtable in The Wall Street Journal. None of that mattered: The project originally went to another developer, Tishman Speyer, and when that deal fell through, Related scooped it up. Architecture had nothing to do with it. Yet nearly five years later, with contracts signed and money starting to flow, that gold-plated crew of designers, working in separate studios, with different philosophies and, until recently, little consultation, has nevertheless produced a kind of haphazard harmony. What unites them is their taste for complexity and the deftness with which they maneuver conflicting programs into a single composition. Just past the Culture Shed, on the 30th Street side of the site at Eleventh Avenue, is the eastern half’s only purely residential tower, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, with David Rockwell. It’s an architectural griffin, grafting together rectilinear rental units on the lower floors with flower-petal condo layouts up high—about 680 apartments in all. The fantastically idiosyncratic bulges and dimples join in complicated ways that make the glass façade look quilted. Now walk north, back across the plaza and past a still-to-be-designed café pavilion, and you come to another tower with a textured exterior—vertical folds with stone on one side and glass on the other, as if a palazzo had merged with a modernist shaft. Actually, the building is even more hybridized than that. David Childs, the architect of the Time Warner Center and One World Trade Center, had to shoehorn a large Equinox gym plus offices, an orthopedic hospital, a sports emporium, a hotel, and a condominium into a curved base and a slender tube. “Hudson Yards is a city within a city. This tower is a city within a city—within a city,” he says. The most delicate, crucial, and treacherous design problem at Hudson Yards isn’t a building at all but the public space, and especially the five acres in the middle, an expanse about as large as Bryant Park. Done right, it could be the most vibrant gathering spot on the West Side, a New York version of Venice’s Piazza San Marco. Done wrong, it could be a windswept tundra populated only by office workers scuttling between the subway and their desks. It’s worrisome that Ross and his team postponed thinking about that void until so much of the architecture had been designed, but heartening that they are intensely focused on it now. Related has given the job to the talented Thomas Woltz, whose quietly refined restorations of gardens and college campuses may not quite have prepared him for the fierce pressure of shaping New York’s most ample new public space. It’s not just a place for people to mingle but for the relationships between the various buildings to express themselves across the connecting plaza. “One of the paintings I admire most is The School of Athens,” says KPF’s William Pedersen, referring to Raphael’s klatch of bearded philosophers chatting beneath noble vaults. “You have great historical and intellectual figures gathered together in dynamic groups of interchange, gesturing to each other. That’s the architectural assignment for each of us.” David Childs phrases a similar thought in a way that graciously defers to Woltz even while sending the message: Don’t screw this up. “We have an obligation to create great architecture, and all the buildings have to be related to the space in the center,” he says. “The void is the most important part.” Woltz has gotten it wrong once. In his first presentation, he placed a plush lawn at the center of the complex, and Ross nearly kicked him out of the room. What Ross wants is not a place to toss a Frisbee, but a town square alive with purpose and electricity. That’s a spectacular challenge; there are few great models for a European-style piazza within a ring of skyscrapers. For now, Woltz’s solution is a paved ellipse, outlined by a perimeter of trees cultivated with geometric severity—given “the Edward Scissorhands topiary treatment,” as one designer puts it. The idea is to create a verdant transition from the human scale to that of glass-and-steel giants. “In an open space next to 1,000-foot towers, our tallest tree is going to be like an ant next to a tall man’s shoe,” Woltz says. But the most maddening paradox of Woltz’s assignment is that he must tailor an open space to the motley public—in ways that will please a potentate. Like some fairy-tale monarch, Ross has dispatched his counselors to find an artist capable of supplying his modern Trevi Fountain. What he wants is something monumental enough to focus the entire project, a piece that’s not just watery and impressive but so instantly iconic that people will meet by it, shoot photos of it, notice it from three blocks away, and recognize it from the cover of guidebooks. You get the feeling that Ross is hedging his bets: If Woltz can’t deliver a world-class plaza with his trees and pavers, maybe a Jeff Koons or an Anish Kapoor can force it into life with a big honking hunk of sculpture. A giant puppy can’t solve an urban design problem, though. It’s nice that a hardheaded mogul like Ross places so much faith in the civic power of art, but he may be asking it to do too much. The plaza is the node where the site’s conflicting forces reveal themselves: the tension between public and private, between city and campus, between democratic space and commercial real estate. Occupy Wall Street’s takeover of Zuccotti Park last year pointed up the oxymoron inherent in the concept of privately owned public space: You can do anything you like there, as long as the owners deem it okay. Childs hopes that his client’s insistence on premium-brand design won’t make Hudson Yards just the province of privilege. “We want this project to be laced through with public streets, so that everyone has ownership of it, whether you’re arriving in your $100,000 limo or pushing a shopping cart full of your belongings.” The plans include drop-off lanes, so the limos are taken care of. But if the shopping-cart pushers, buskers, protesters, skateboarders, and bongo players start feeling too welcome at Hudson Yards, Related’s security guards will have a ready-made *argument to get them to disperse: This is private property.

I was taking a look around at Detroit on GoogleMaps Streetview. Am I glad I don't live there!

Another great upcoming restoration along Verdun's main street. As of September 2015: The Baptist Church had been there since 2002 and moved out on July 5th 2015. Bye bye silly blue panels. June 2015: Perhaps Uniprix can follow suit and restore their facade at 4470 Wellington. I think this used to be an arena of some kind, or a boxing gym?

Viger Project Montreal, Quebec, Canada Step 1: 2008 Step 2: 2010 Viger will be a 19-story, 828,000 square foot mixed-use project consisting of a 225,000 square foot hotel, 185,000 square foot of retail space, 385,000 square foot of residential space with parking for 1,400. The hotel portion includes the redevelopment of a 150,000 square foot historic chateau-style hotel. SUMMARY Address 710 Rue Saint-antoine E Montreal, Quebec, Canada Location Located in Montreal, Quebec Canada Hines' Role Development Manager Net Rentable Area Hotel: 225,000 sq. ft. (20,902 sq. meters) Residential: 385,000 sq. ft. (35,766 sq. meters) Retail space: 185,000 sq. ft. (17,186 sq. meters) The renaissance of Viger Square Phil O'Brien Senior advisor Telemedia DevelopmentI Inc. Mr. Philip O'Brien will be conducting a presentation about the Viger site on the eastern edge of Old Montreal. He will discuss the history of the site: the building of a grand hotel and railway station in what was then the central core of Montreal, its prominence as a prestigious address for business elites, and its cultural significance for the city of Montreal. The context of its decline during the 20th century will be outlined: from the changing economic conditions in the 1930s and its demise to its current state in the urban environment, resulting from the expansion of the railway yards, the digging of the open trench of the Ville-Marie expressway, and the demolition of a vast number of houses to make room for the CBC project. He will then highlight the exciting potential for redevelopment in light of changing local economic conditions and redevelopment opportunities for this area of town. Thursday, April 12, 2007 from 7:30 to 9 a.m. Ritz-Carlton Montreal 1228 Sherbrooke Street W. chateau_viger.pdf

Architecture de qualité !!! J'aime ! Site actuel Street View : http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=2365+saint-patrick,+montr%C3%A9al&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&ll=45.481795,-73.569011&spn=0.01005,0.022724&safe=off&hnear=2365+Rue+Saint+Patrick,+Montr%C3%A9al,+Communaut%C3%A9-Urbaine-de-Montr%C3%A9al,+Qu%C3%A9bec+H3K+1B4&gl=ca&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=45.481795,-73.569011&panoid=j-C-35jG8-wN6UtYa2dOdQ&cbp=12,328.39,,0,4.97 Site actuel Bird Eye View : http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=rkdbsx8w28hz&lvl=18.31&dir=90.13&sty=b&nwyw=1&ss=yp.rue%20saint-patrick%2C%20montr%C3%A9al&form=LMLTCC http://www.mystsurlecanal.com *click to enlarge* *click to enlarge* *click to enlarge* *click to enlarge* Architectes : http://ateliercba.com/

Took the 55 bus north on St-Laurent yesterday. I was shocked to see dozens of boarded up store fronts on the east side of the street between Sherbrooke and Mont-Royal. This is so much worse that I have ever seen in over 20 years! So sad and depressing. How could we let this happen? Go see for yourself. Take a walk on the Main. If anyone wants to record and share the images here, I'm sure you will be shocked too. Here's something I just saw in CULT-MTL on same subject, although IMO the situation is much more serious than the tone in the piece. http://cultmontreal.com/2013/04/st-laurent-montreal-main/ St-Laurent has seen better days There are few greater, simpler pleasures in this town than walking along the Main on a crisp spring afternoon. But given how dire things are looking for Montreal’s multicultural microcosm, I’m not looking forward to doing it this year with my usual enthusiasm. For years, pedestrians had to deal with all the interminable construction, and while many of us courageously traversed those rickety planks masquerading as sidewalks, the street never really recovered from those trying times. Businesses have been shuttering left and right (I weep for BBQ Rocky’s — where I’ll get smokes and watch soaps now I don’t know), so in an effort to make the abyss more enticing to prospective entrepreneurs, the St-Laurent Merchants’ Association is spending $30,000 to dress up the growing number of empty storefronts. Of course, it’s akin to trying to stop the bleeding from a gunshot wound with a few dabs of a wet nap, or more specifically it’s a modern take on Potemkin Village. The obvious, sad truth is that, given how gradual the Main’s depreciation has been, it’s going to take more than a few fancy snapshots to revitalize the area. It’s not a bad idea, per se, because mushy newspapers certainly don’t make for good window shopping, but saving the Main will require progressive thinking. There are plenty of cooler streets around town these days, and history isn’t much of a selling point, even when it’s engraved on ergonomically unfavourable benches. Some streets just never get their groove back: St-Laurent merchants need only look to their cross-street brother Prince Arthur if they want a harrowing look into their future. There’s a municipal election coming up later this year, so perhaps it’s high time that the supposedly “clean” party — the one that rules over the Plateau with a sanctimonious wag and aspires to expand their empire — prove they’re good at something besides pointing out how bloated and corrupt their political rivals are. And if they don’t have any solutions, either, maybe they can just hike parking rates by another buck or two. That’ll help. ■

Proposed: Current: NOTE: This is a Karsten Rumpf project announced back in JUNE 2011 with little to no indication that any work started. Since he is currently active with the Bishop Court condo conversion, I figured this project would be worth posting here. But this thread probably belongs to "projects oublie" for now.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/19/travel/what-to-do-in-36-hours-in-montreal.html 36 Hours in Montreal Whether you want to embrace the season on rinks, trails or runs, or dodge the cold and head to the spa, this vibrant city has it all. Winter is right around the corner, and when the going gets cold — like zero-degrees-Fahrenheit cold — Montrealers get resourceful. Some dodge Canadian winter amid the heated vapors of the city’s Nordic spas or the warming drinks of cozy bars. Others embrace it by skiing and skating in public parks, cheering the hometown Canadiens hockey team and ingesting hearty meals in the new wave of forestlike and lodge-inspired restaurants. And still others flamboyantly celebrate the frozen season, reveling at Igloofest (an outdoor electronic-music extravaganza), Montréal en Lumière (a food and entertainment festival) and sugar shacks (forest canteens that sprout during maple-syrup season) amid near-Arctic conditions. Whether you are more interested in creative cocooning or winter worship, Quebec’s biggest city offers manifold amusements for the province’s defining season. Outerwear recommended. Friday 1. *Ready, Set, Snow, 5 p.m. Skate, ski or sled into winter at Parc du Mont-Royal. (The mountain it partly occupies is said to have provided Montreal’s name.) The sprawling hilltop park is the center of activities involving snow and ice. From December to March, Le Pavillon du Lac aux Castors rents skates (9 Canadian dollars, or $7 at 1.30 Canadian to the U.S. dollar, for two hours), cross-country skis (12 dollars and up for one hour) and inner tubes (5 to 9 dollars, depending on age, for the day) for the nearby outdoor rinks, trails and runs, some affording lovely city views. 2. *Enchanted Forest, 8 p.m. Reheat in the stylish confines of the new SouBois restaurant and nightclub. The underground space suggests a magical woodlands where avant-garde sculptural trees hover over a dining room of plank floors, shingled walls, raw-wood tables and Scandinavian-style chairs. The chef, Guillaume Daly, conjures magic too, metamorphosing rustic Canadian ingredients into innovative treats. The poutine is a gorgeously gloppy stack of greasy thick fries — piled like logs in a fire, and drenched with velvety warm Cheddar sauce, pungent mushrooms and an unctuous block of foie gras — while veal steak gets a funky crunch from spiced popcorn. For dessert, revisit campfire memories courtesy of deconstructed s’mores, replete with cubed marshmallows, jagged chocolate fragments and crumbled cookies. A three-course dinner for two costs about 110 dollars. Make reservations. 3. Canadian Libations, 10 p.m. The staggering whisky menu at the Burgundy Lion, a lively British-style pub with dark wood surfaces and frosted glass, offers further means to warm up. The more exotic specimens hail from Taiwan, Sweden, France and Switzerland, while Canadian representatives include Wiser’s Red Letter (12 dollars), a mellow elixir with a hint of toasted nut. Down the street, candlelit La Drinkerie Ste. Cunégonde offers several Canadian beers as chasers, including Les Trois Lettres IPA (5.50 dollars), a fragrant, floral brew with hints of clove and nutmeg. Saturday 4. Earth and Sky, 9 a.m. Still chilly? Eternal summer awaits inside the humid tropical forest of the Biodôme, a glass-roofed nature preserve containing multiple ecosystems. You might glimpse iguanas, frogs, bats, snakes, sloths and other exotic creatures as you wend your way among the dense vegetation, streams and stone caverns. The trail then takes you into forest, mountains, Atlantic gulf and subarctic islands (complete with penguins). Next door, the two-year-old Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium is a postmodern silvery structure shaped like two telescopes pointed at the sky. Within, two domed theaters-in-the-round take you on immersive sensory journeys across the cosmos with shows like “Dark Universe,” about dark matter and energy, and “Aurorae,” about the Northern Lights. Admission to both facilities costs 33.50 dollars. Check the website (espacepourlavie.ca) for the film schedule. 5. *Shack Snack, Noon If you can’t get to a real sugar shack, the “Sugar Shack” sampler (11.95 dollars) at Eggspectation — a vast all-day breakfast and brunch hall on fashionable Rue Laurier Ouest — is a copious, calorie-rich substitute. Typical sugar shack fare, the dish heaps on fluffy scrambled eggs, sliced ham, baked beans, fried potato slices and unfilled sweet crepes along with ample maple syrup. The restaurant’s formidable menu also encompasses everything from lobster macaroni and cheese (18.95 dollars) to around 10 types of eggs Benedict. 6. **Buy Canadian, 1:30 p.m. You’ve probably grown a size since that meal. Conveniently, the boutiques along Rue Laurier Ouest brim with Canadian-made garments to accommodate your expanded frame. Chic insulation abounds at La Canadienne, where ladies can score weather-treated knee-high suede boots (450 dollars), a long quilted silvery jacket with a fur-lined hood (1,125 dollars) and much besides. Cool, straightforward, solid-colored garments to wear underneath can be found in the eponymous boutique of the veteran Montreal designer François Beauregard, including stretchy jersey T-shirts in autumnal colors (50 dollars) and dark blue 1940s-style trench coat dresses (189 dollars). Strut the ensemble to Juliette & Chocolat, a cafe serving some 20 types of hot chocolate, complete with tasting notes (6.75 to 8.50 dollars, generally). 7. **Chromatherapy, 3 p.m. With its colorful collections of art and antiquities, the Musée des Beaux Arts de Montreal illuminates even the grayest Montreal days, notably in the ground-floor galleries of 19th- and 20th-century painting. Mediterranean sun, sea and palms radiate from Matisse’s “Seated Woman, Back Turned to the Open Window,” a 1922 canvas set in the French Riviera city of Nice. Almost adjacent, the disassembled, fractured and explicitly naked couple in Picasso’s erotic “Embrace” (1971) generates a different kind of heat. A kaleidoscopic array of iconic furniture and housewares fills the multilevel design pavilion, from burgundy Arne Jacobsen “Egg” chairs to candy-colored Ettore Sottsass bookshelves to space-age 1970s red televisions from the Victor Company of Japan. A sleek yellow Ski-Doo snowmobile from 1961 begs to be borrowed for a joy ride. Admission: 20 and 12 dollars, depending on exhibition. 8. **North Stars, 7 p.m. Canadian pride suffuses the friendly, lively new Manitoba restaurant. Animal furs and raw logs decorate the industrial concrete room, and indigenous ingredients from the Great White North fill the chalkboard menus. Among starters, the plump baseball-size dumpling spills out shredded, succulent pork tongue and flank into a tangy broth floating with crunchy daikon for a Canadian-Chinese mash-up. For mains, thick deer steak gets a zesty drench of red wine sauce infused with Labrador tea and crunch from root vegetables like candied carrot and smoked onion. Maple syrup-smoked bone marrow is topped with berries, onion and Japanese mushrooms for a sublime hunter-gatherer hybrid. A three-course meal for two is about 100 dollars. 9. *Liquor Laboratory, 10 p.m. Tucked across from Parc La Fontaine (a favorite ice-skating spot), Lab is a dimly lighted speakeasy of brick and dark wood where the mad mixologist Fabien Maillard and fellow “labtenders” ceaselessly research new cures for your sobriety. Who else could invent the Jerky Lab Jack (14 dollars), a concoction of Jack Daniels whisky, Curaçao, cane sugar and bitters flavored with barbecue sauce? It’s a gulp of the American south, flamed with a blowtorch and delivered under a miniature clothesline hung with beef jerky. Continuing toward the Equator, Caribbean flavors infuse the dozens of specialty rums (from Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, Grenada and beyond) and cocktails like Bébé Dragon, a blast of Barbados rum, house-made ginger syrup, lemon juice, lemon-lime soda, mango and basil (14 dollars). Reserve spots online. Sunday 10. Vintage Voyage, 10 a.m. Finally: a place stocking those stag heads, Lego figurines, cowboy paintings, flapper hats, snow shoes, lace doilies and neon signs you’ve had trouble finding. Near the last stop of the Metro’s blue line, Marché aux Puces Saint Michel is a vintage shopper’s Shangri-La. The sprawling, dusty, musty two-level labyrinth-like flea market holds hundreds of stalls selling the contents of seemingly every Canadian attic and basement. Kiosk 216 has an impeccable collection of vinyl LPs from the “Valley of the Dolls” soundtrack to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Grandes Chansons de Gainsbourg,” while Artiques (kiosk 219; 514-898-2536) sells well-maintained pinball machines, jukeboxes, pipe organs and radios. For gents needing winterwear, La Garette d’Anna (kiosk 358; facebook.com/LaGaretteDAnna) sports an extensive collection of bomber jackets, capes, police caps and pith helmets. Haggle. 11. Ship Shape, 1 p.m. Norway, Sweden and Finland have mastered the art of stylishly dealing with cold weather, and Montreal has paid homage to these experts with numerous Nordic-themed spas around town. The most innovative is Bota Bota, a former ferryboat that was remade in sleek contemporary style and reopened as a wellness facility in the winter of 2010. Spread over five decks, the indoor-outdoor spa offers many massages and facial treatments, but the core experience is the “water circuit” (35 to 70 dollars depending on day and time). Sweat out the weekend’s toxins in a Finnish sauna or hammam; plunge into one of the cold pools; and finally chill out in one of the relaxation areas or the restaurant. The 678 portholes and numerous wall-size glass panels afford superb views of the city skyline, though the best vantage point is the external heated whirlpool bath. There might be no warmer spot amid wintry Montreal. Lodging With 131 suites, downtown’s Hotel Le Crystal (1100, rue de la Montagne, 514-861-5550) offers anti-winter pampering perks like an indoor saltwater pool and an outdoor year-round rooftop hot tub, both with city views. Some executive suites and penthouses have operational fireplaces. Double rooms from 199 Canadian dollars. Situated in the hip Plateau neighborhood, the 21-room Auberge de la Fontaine (1301, rue Rachel Est, 514-597-0166) lies across the street from leafy Parc La Fontaine — home to an outdoor skating rink — and down the street from Lab cocktail bar. Certain rooms have whirlpool baths. Doubles from 122 Canadian dollars.

Un petit quiz proposé par The Guardian ... j'en ai eu 10/13 http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/sep/30/identify-world-cities-street-plans-quiz

http://gehlarchitects.com/blog/hurray-for-smart-montrealers/ HURRAY FOR SMART MONTREALERS! Over the last couple of months I have written about the different aspects of smart cities, the pros and cons, the dos and don’ts. The outcome of these musings suggests that we ought to discard the idea of a smart city for the sake of promoting smart communities, in which smartness is a tool for benefitting and improving the local social sustainability. However, within this approach lies a fundamental challenge: how do we actually make communities engage with and take responsibility for the shaping of the public realm, using tools and methods they have never known before? Enter Montreal. Montreal uses pilot projects to kick-start the regeneration of the urban spaces. A vacant parking lot on the outskirts of Downtown was turned into an urban beach thanks to the local organization l’ADUQ. Public Life in Montreal To understand the social life of Montrealers, one must first understand the basic history of the city’s public spaces. During the era of modernisation, more than 1/3 of the downtown core was demolished to make way for massive super-complexes embodying offices, car pars, underground malls and cafes. In the industrial suburbs, thousands of housing units were torn down to allow vehicular traffic an easy access into the city. These “renovations” were carried out in less than two decades, but they still managed to methodically get in the way of public life. Since then, the city has taken a completely different approach to urban planning, superseding even today’s hype for attractive, green and lively metropolises. “My colleagues and I, we based our entire careers around reconstructing the city from where it was left after the 1970’s and 1980’s demolitions (…) we want Montreal to be a network of public spaces.” – Wade Eide, Montreal Urban Planning Department, private interview July 15, 2014 Throughout the year, Montreal hosts hundreds of events that all contribute to a lively and active public life. Today, the effects of Wade Eide and his colleagues’ efforts are absolutely visible in the streets and squares of Montreal, which have indeed been transformed into a coherent experience of activities and life. The most remarkable part of this transformation is the effect that it has had in the mentality of the citizens (or maybe it was the other way around?): in Montreal, the city truly is for its people, and people care for and participate in public matters to a degree that I have rarely seen. I believe, because of this mentality, Montreal has a serious chance of actually fulfilling the vision of a smart city built for and by communities. The steps of Place des Arts serve as a public space, popular with everyone on a sunny day. The Montreal Model Montreal’s outstanding mentality for public participation has – luckily – also been recognized by the current smart Montreal’s front-runners, mayor Denis Coderre and Vice-President of the Smart and Digital Office, Harout Chitilian. In their campaigns for a smarter Montreal, they enthusiastically encourage the citizens to voice their opinions and share their ideas: “This ambitious project of making a smart and digital city will take advantage of new technologies, but above all it will draw on the collective intelligence to create a specific Montreal model. I count on you, Montrealers to give your opinions on the various forums that are available to you. I invite you to participate today. The floor is yours!” – (translated from French) Denis Coderre, Mayor of Montreal, 2014 Focus on citizens is visible in the public space. In this project residents of Montreal share their unique stories in a virtual exhibition. As part of the public participation process, the city has developed a web portal, “Faire MTL” (Make Montreal), where Montrealers are offered the chance to contribute to, comment on, collaborate with and follow 180 tangible projects that are to be implemented over the next couple of years. The ambitious plans also include the creation of physical spaces for innovation and co-creation, along with the use of public spaces as living laboratories for the growing smart communities. The fusion of a genuinely open and inclusive government and the natural participatory spirit of the Montrealers, makes Montreal a key player to follow in the game of defining how future (smart) cities could be shaped and function at the hands of the citizens. Every summer Sainte-Catherine Street (the city’s commercial high street) transforms into a pedestrian street, allowing citizens to walk, shop, eat and enjoy the city life. Find more about Montreal’s projects here. August 25, 2015 __ Camilla Siggaard Andersen sent via Tapatalk

Merci à MTLCity pour m'avoir aiguillé sur le sujet! http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/?p=49437&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter http://vtdigger.org/2015/06/30/vermont-pbs-soaks-up-montreal-qulture/

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette) This is the first part of three. Plus you get more visuals in the paper today.

Lire les commentaires sur cette decision sur leur site Facebook qui a 250k abonnés. Nous n'avons pas commenter beaucoup ici, mais l'opinion américain est intéressant. https://m.facebook.com/hyperallergic http://hyperallergic.com/207918/woman-found-guilty-of-criminal-harassment-for-instagramming-street-art/ Woman Found Guilty of Criminal Harassment for Instagramming Street Art by Benjamin Sutton on May 18, 2015 Jennifer Pawluck (photo provided by Pawluck to Hyperallergic), and the street art photo that landed Jennifer Pawluck in hot water with Montreal police. Jennifer Pawluck (photo provided by Pawluck to Hyperallergic), and the street art photo that landed Jennifer Pawluck in hot water with Montreal police Jennifer Pawluck, the Montrealer who was arrested in 2013 for posting a photo of a piece of street art on Instagram, has been convicted of criminal harassment and, on Thursday, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and 18 months probation. Her community service must be completed within a year. The 22-year-old college student has also been forbidden from posting any public messages on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and must restrict her use of the social media platforms to private communications for the next year, according to the Montreal Gazette. She had faced maximum penalties of up to six months in jail and a fine of $5,000. Reached via Facebook, Pawluck told Hyperallergic: “I am unfortunately not responding to any media questions … following my sentencing I’d prefer to keep a very low profile.” In late April Pawluck was found guilty for having posted a photo on Instagram of a piece of street art showing Ian Lafrenière, the lead officer for communications and media relations for the Montreal police, with a bullet wound in his forehead. Pawluck did not create the artwork, but merely saw it and posted a photo of it online. The image was accompanied by text that read “Ian Lafrenière” and “ACAB,” an acronym for “All Cops Are Bastards.” Pawluck had seen the piece of street art in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood where she lives and posted it online accompanied by hashtags including “#ianlafreniere” and “#acab,” later claiming that she didn’t know who Lafrenière was. At the time, Pawluck had 81 followers. “On the photo there were links, or hashtags, with Ian Lafrenière’s name written in different ways and allusions like (‘All cops are bastards’) and (‘One cop, one bullet’) to the point where, given the context, there was criminal harassment,” Josie Laplante, lawyer for the prosecution, told the National Post in April following Pawluck’s conviction. “I think we all have to pay attention to what we post because (some people) don’t consider the impact it can have on other individuals.” Pawluck was a participant in the 2012 student protests in Montreal, during which Lafrenière was a very visible spokesperson for the city’s police force. He said in his testimony that he and his children had found the image disturbing, and that his wife had been forced to take a leave of absence from her job because of it. “There is a limit that must not be crossed,” said judge Marie-Josée Di Lallo when delivering her verdict on April 23. “She (Pawluck) felt anger toward the police.” Tagged as: censorship, Featured, Instagram, Jennifer Pawluck, Montreal, Social Media, street art sent via Tapatalk

http://montreal.eater.com/2015/1/7/7503509/the-most-anticipated-new-montreal-restaurants-2015 by Ian Harrison Jan 7 2015, 1:00p @Blumsteinboy SHARE(54) TWEET(4) Projet Europa Jérémie Bastien's new home DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW EATER MONTREAL × A look at what's on the horizon. 1. Monarque Location: 417 Notre-Dame Ouest, Old Montreal Major Playesr: Richard and Jérémie Bastien Projected Opening: Late summer The Story: Bastien père et fils (Leméac) will open a "Gramercy Tavern-style" restaurant in the Penny Lane mixed development. Slated for April, the project has been beset by typical construction delays. One result of the holdup, however, was a complete rethink of the space. Monarque will be almost twice as large as originally planned, with a bar area that seats 65 to 70 and a main dining room with room for 100. Two separate kitchens will serve the entire restaurant. · More on Monarque [EMTL] Photo: Project Europa 2. La Petite Maison Location: du Parc, Mile End Major Player: Danny St-Pierre Projected Opening: End of summer The Story: St-Pierre, familiar for his work on Qu'est-ce qu'on mange pour souper? and stints at Derrière les Fagots, Laloux and Auguste in Sherbrooke, calls his first Montreal venture a "traditional restaurant" with a casual vibe but without casual food per se. The chef wants to keep the exact address under wraps for now but calls it "a beautiful space, under 200 square metres." The key, says St-Pierre, will be to find that bang-for-the-buck sweet spot where he can "send out quality food made with quality ingredients at a reasonable price." Expect plates to share on the app side of the menu (spreads, a lot of vegetables) and mains that will stand alone and "have an identity." St-Pierre will soon decide whether to implement a reservation system (maybe) and install a deep-fryer (probably not). A head chef will be hired for the day-to-day management of the kitchen but the overall vision will be St-Pierre's alone. · More on La Petite Maison [EMTL] Photo: Danny St-Pierre 3. Maison Sociale Location: 5386 Saint-Laurent, Mile End Major Player: Dave Schmidt Projected Opening: End of January The Story: Schmidt, the impresario behind such spots as Maïs, Kabinet, Datcha, Le Mal Nécessaire, Thazard and the bygone Café Sardine, partners up with the likes of Na'eem Adam, Philip Tabah, Christophe Beaudoin Vallières, Marc-Antoine Clément and James Benjamin to reboot the old Green Room as a café/restaurant/cocktail bar/new wave social club. Dan Geltner, the former chef at L'Orignal, is no longer involved in the project. Tom Allain, now at Hôtel Herman, will make the move to Maison Sociale's kitchen. · More on Maison Sociale [EMTL] Photo: Maison Sociale 4. Soubois Location: 1106 de Maisonneuve Ouest, Downtown Major Players: Francine Brûlé, Alexandre Brosseau Projected Opening: April The Story: This new restaurant, in the old Copacabana, is from the mother-son duo of Brûlé, the owner of Les Enfants Terribles, and Brosseau, of Flyjin. Other principals include chef Guillaume Daly (Les Enfants Terribles, Grinder, XO), JP Haddad (Globe), Philippe Rainville (Flyjin, Le Filet, Les Enfants Terribles), Thomas Hatzithomas and Christopher Karambatsos. Brosseau calls Soubois "a French-Canadian bistro" inspired by an "underground enchanted forest." · More on Soubois [EMTL] Photo: Google Street View 5. Fiorellino Location: Quartier International/Downtown Major Player: Buonanotte Projected Opening: Mid-March The Story: Partner Massimo Lecas calls the new spot from the Buonanotte group modern, authentic Italian in the best possible sense—no throwback red sauce menus, in other words. Fiorellino translates as "little flower"; a nod, says Lecas, to the lullaby "Buonanotte Fiorellino" (which, incidentally, is also where the Main supper club got its name). Erik Mandracchia (Le Bremner, Impasto) is in as chef. The restaurant will feature a wood-burning oven for pizzas but, take note, will not be a pizzeria (Lecas is quick to point this out). On the beverage side, look for more of a cocktail emphasis. Bottom line: a concession to the times and "what Buonanotte would have looked like if we had opened it today instead of 23 years ago." The group, incidentally, may also have plans for the old Globe space. · Globe Closes After 21 Years [EMTL] Photo: Buonanotte Photo: Buonanotte 6. Ichi Go Ichi E Location: 360 Rachel Est, Plateau Major Player: Kevin Fung Projected Opening: Any day now The Story: The popular Westmount izakaya Imadake opens a second restaurant on Rachel between Drolet and Saint-Denis. Photo: Google Street View Photo: Google Street View 7. New Charles-Antoine Crête Restaurant Location: Unknown Major Players: Charles-Antoine Crête, Cheryl Johnson Projected Opening: Unknown The Story: Toqué!'s prodigal son, recently seen at Majestique and on À table avec l'ennemi, returns with a restaurant of his own. Partner Cheryl Johnson: "We are excited to be opening a place that we don't know quite what it's going to be. But one thing is for sure, it will be playful and down to earth. A place for people 0-100 years old. Oh, and we won't be serving dinosaur." · Charles-Antoine Crête Tore Up Omnivore Paris [EMTL] Photo: Omnivore Photo: Omnivore 8. Perfecto Location: 20 Duluth Est, Plateau Major Player: Eric Rice Projected Opening: Soon The Story: The chef from Mile End's Fabergé and Roux food truck opens his own place in the old Triangulo. · More on Perfecto [EMTL] Photo: Google Street View Photo: Google Street View 9. Le Red Tiger Location: 1201 de Maisonneuve Est, Village Major Players: Phong Thach and Emilie Nguyen (co-owners of Kaiji Restaurant in Villeray), Dan Pham Projected Opening: Late February/March The Story: Nguyen describes Le Red Tiger as an ode to Vietnamese street and soul food: We love our culture, but Vietnamese food isn’t all pho, noodles, and soups. We see pho places everywhere in Montreal, but when we crave grilled skewered meats, Õc (sautéed sea snails in tamarind sauce), or Thịt Kho (caramelized pork and eggs braised in carbonated juice) they are hard to find, (unless we're in Vietnam, at our mom’s house, or someone else’s mom’s house). The menu will embody our 'street food' experiences in Vietnam that solely require your fingers to eat, and also home cooked meals that we grew up eating at home. More intel on Le Red Tiger: Lawrence Picard from Nectar & Mixologie is behind the beverage program and Guillaume Menard from Atelier Mainor is in as designer. You can see Menard's work at the likes of Joverse, Mme. Lee and Voskin. Photo: Le Red Tiger 10. San Gennaro Location: 69 Saint-Zotique Est, Little Italy Major Players: Mauro, Massimo and Fabrizio Covone Projected Opening: Soon The Story: The family that gave Montreal (and Laval) Bottega Pizzeria opens a caffè and pizza al taglio spot. Photo: San Gennaro 11. New John Winter Russell Restaurant Location: Unknown Major Player: John Winter Russell Projected Opening: Unknown The Story: Ex-Van Horne chef Winter Russell, 2014's prince of pop-ups and a frequent collaborator with Gaspésie Sauvage, has imminent plans to open a restaurant with a "small vegetable/plant driven menu." Photo: Maxim Juneau sent via Tapatalk

Bay Street still has Canada’s most expensive office space http://renx.ca/bay-street-still-canadas-expensive-office-space/ Bay Street in Toronto has the most expensive office space in Canada, and no other city comes close to matching the $68.52 per square foot average rent that’s being asked for in the heart of the country’s financial district. JLL Canada recently released its “Most Expensive Streets for Office Space” report, which ranks Canadian cities by their highest asking rents. It shows many companies are still willing to pay a premium for the most expensive spaces, and competition is growing to get into prominent financial, retail and government hubs. “The most significant trend that we are seeing across major markets is that there are a large number of new developments underway,” said JLL Canada president Brett Miller. “Although we have only seen minor changes to the top market rents thus far in 2014, we anticipate that as the new inventory comes to market, overall rents will decrease in the older class-A stock whilst headline rents in new developments may raise the top line rents.” Here are the most expensive streets in nine major Canadian cities 1. Bay Street, Toronto, $68.52 per square foot Bay Street held strong in first place for the fourth year running. It features the headquarters of major Canadian banks and is home to many investment banks, accounting and law firms. Brookfield Place, at 161 Bay St., continues to command the highest office rents of any building in Canada at $76.54 per square foot. The average market rent in Toronto is $34.82 per square foot. (Bay St. looking north from Front St. shown in the image,) 2. 8th Avenue SW, Calgary, $59.06 per square foot 8th Avenue SW again has the highest average gross office rents in Calgary. Large vacancies and availabilities along this corridor typically account for significant activity and command market-leading rates. Large oil and gas companies have historically clustered around the central business district in this area. The top rent on the street is $64.40 per square foot and the average market rent in Calgary is $46 per square foot. 3. Burrard Street, Vancouver, $58.87 per square foot Burrard Street has dropped to third place despite a slight increase in average asking rent from $58.47 in 2013. Approximately 18.3 per cent of downtown class-A office supply is located on Burrard Street between West Georgia Street and Canada Place. The vacancy rate in these six buildings sits at 1.6 per cent, which justifies this location commanding some of the highest rental rates in the city despite the impending influx of new supply that’s putting downward pressure on rents throughout the central business district. The top rent on the street is $66.06 per square foot and the average market rent in Vancouver is $38.81 per square foot. 4. Albert Street, Ottawa, $52.10 per square foot Albert Street remained in fourth position with average rents decreasing slightly from $53.40 per square foot. Albert Street is mainly home to government-related office towers, including numerous foreign embassies, and a few of the largest Canadian business law firms. There seems to be a wait-and-see approach in anticipation of the 2015 federal election regarding the government’s intentions to lease or return more space to the market. The top rent on the street is $53.54 per square foot and the average market rent in Ottawa is $30.90 per square foot. 5. 101st Street NW, Edmonton, $46.71 per square foot The average asking rent dropped from $48.19 per square foot, but 101st Street NW is expected to remain the most expensive in Edmonton with the recent commitment to build the arena district, a large-scale, mixed-use project incorporating the city’s new National Hockey League arena. This is expected to revitalize some of the most important corners on the street. The top rent on the street is $54.15 per square foot and the average market rent in Edmonton is $28.30 per square foot. 6. René-Lévesque W, Montreal, $44.28 per square foot The average gross rent on the street hasn’t changed significantly year over year, but the total value of tenant inducement packages has nearly doubled. The most expensive building on the street (1250 René-Lévesque W) rents for $52.76 per square foot but has seen some downward pressure of two to four dollars on its net rent due to 170,000 square feet of vacant space left behind by Heenan Blaikie. The average market rent in Montreal is $30.38 per square foot. 7. Upper Water Street, Halifax, $36.42 per square foot Upper Water Street has maintained seventh place despite its average asking rent dropping from $36.65 per square foot last year. New construction coming on stream is expected to put downward pressure on rents in existing office buildings. The top rent on the street is $36.62 per square foot and the average market rent in Halifax is $27.44 per square foot. 8. Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, $35.67 per square foot Portage Avenue held strong in eighth place, with its average rent increasing from $35.17 per square foot. The class-A market remains tight and is expected to remain so through 2015. The top rent on the street is $37.32 per square foot and the average market rent in Winnipeg is $23.62 per square foot. 9. Laurier Boulevard, Québec City, $27.50 per square foot Laurier Boulevard held its ninth-place position despite the average rent dropping from $28.14 per square foot. There’s been no notable increase in the average gross rent and the vacancy rate on the street remains low at 5.2 per cent compared to the rest of the market’s 7.8 per cent. The top rent on the street is $28.98 per square foot and the average market rent in Québec City is $21.89 per square foot. JLL manages more than 50 million square feet of facilities across Canada and offers tenant and landlord representation, project and development services, investment sales, advisory and appraisal services, debt capital markets and integrated facilities management services to owners and tenants.

539 Sainte-Catherine Street Montreal, QC This building is situated at the northeast corner of Sainte-Catherine and Aylmer, across the street from The Bay's 640,000 sq. ft. main store. The property can accommodate a tenant of up to 5,000 sq. ft. on the ground floor, with potential for a mezzanine if required. The 40 foot facade on Sainte-Catherine Street, ceiling heights above 14 ft., excellent visibility, and the presence of many national retailers in the immediate vicinity create an ideal location for a flagship retail store in downtown Montreal. The building is undergoing a retrofit with completion expected in spring, 2012. http://www.canderel.com/news-communication/539-sainte-catherine-street

http://sustainablecitiescollective.com/city-life/324311/montreal-je-tadore Montréal, je t'adore 10 years ago, I went to Montreal for the first time on a whim. I was 20 years old, living in Ottawa and working for the Canadian government when I had just found out that my mother had breast cancer. Right after I received this upsetting news, a French Canadian guy - who I’d only met a few weeks earlier - invited me to hang out with him in Montreal. I was in such an emotional state that I decided to risk it and go spend time with someone I barely knew and have him show me his city. From that day forward, I fell madly in love with Montreal (not the boy, though - we remained friends and thankfully my mom recovered from cancer shortly after). I have gone back every few years since then, including spending three weeks in a French immersion program, just a few years after my first visit. When I returned to the city last week with my husband and son, I was reminded why I love Montreal. Here are my ten favourite things - in no particular order - about North America’s coolest city. Bikes - Montreal was one of the first cities in North America to establish a public bike sharing system with its Bixi bikes. The system was launched on May 12, 2009, and currently has 450 stations around Montreal’s central core. The city has embraced bike lanes and bike infrastructure ever since. It’s King/de la Commune station, with 110 docking points, is the biggest bike sharing station in North America. You will find people of all ages and backgrounds on bikes…like this guy:image Street art - Montreal is home to many talented street artists - and it shows, especially around the Plateau/Mont Royal area, which is bursting with colourful, impressive street murals. The city supports these artists through the recently launched MURAL festival. It is a free art festival that aims to celebrate urban art and graffiti painting, sculpture and installations, dance, music, film, and performance. The second edition took place in June on the famous Boulevard Saint-Laurent. Each festival brings new street murals to the neighbourhood. I could write a whole post on Montreal street art (and I probably will).image Advanced walk signals - In some Montreal intersections, pedestrians actually get to proceed on a green light BEFORE cars! A brilliant show of respect for people and a great way to promote safe walkable cities. Babies - I noticed everyone loves babies in Montreal. In Vancouver, people without children tend to avoid eye contact with me/pretend I don’t exist. In Montreal, everyone smiles and wants to help you when you have a child- from grandmas to young male hipsters. In all of the restaurants we went to, people never seemed to mind if my son was fussy or needed tending to. One male server even offered to watch him while my husband and I shopped on St.Denis Street. I’m pretty sure he was joking, but he mentioned that he also has children (and he was under 30). Maybe it is because Quebec’s fertility rate is higher than the Canadian average, but there appeared to be a lot of young families there. Public spaces - Montreal has many fun, creative public spaces - parklets, green laneways, urban forests, public swings, and as I mentioned before, spectacular street art. Here is a shipping container converted into a pleasant seating area:image Festivals and Culture - I remember when I was staying in Montreal for a French immersion program, it was July and the streets were constantly being closed off for some big party, complete with concerts, fireworks, outdoor movies, fashion shows, drum circles and more - Tam Tam at Mont Royal, The Indy, The Festival du Mode et Design, The Comedy Festival, The Festival du Jazz. Of course at the time I found this amazing, because festivals of this scale were so rare in my hometown of Vancouver. We may finally be catching up, but nobody throws a party like Montreal. Whimsy - When I walk around Montreal, I don’t see a city of monotonous glass towers. There are little bits of whimsy all around, like purple accents on heritage buildings, a bold red staircase on a rowhome, street trees made of ribbon, amusing murals, and even garbage cans made to look like maple syrup containers. Montrealers definitely have a sense of fun.image Mid rise buildings/row homes - You can walk down some streets in Montreal and forget you are in a city. I loved getting off the main roads and finding myself on a quiet street surrounded by lush trees and row homes, very much like New York. The city also seems to prefer mid-rise buildings to high-rise towers. Bilingualism and Multiculturalism: Montreal is one of the rare cities where people speak two languages - French and English - and that is a beautiful thing. To be able to walk into a store or restaurant and have the option of being served in French, English, or a bit of both, is a treat for me as I continue to work on improving my French skills. The city is also home to many different ethnicities - from Portuguese to Chinese to Italian and Haitian. On my last visit, I loved spending time in Little Portugal on upper St Laurent St, where I bought a lucky Portuguese rooster and ate an enormous roast chicken sandwich and egg tart. Style: Many Canadian clothing brands got their start in Montreal, such as Jacob and Le Chateau, and the city is home to several clothing designers and manufacturers. Montrealers have a sense of style that is bold and eclectic. This makes for great shopping (especially around the Mont Royal area) and people watching. As one Montrealer states: In Montreal, dressing in what makes you feel awesome and sexy, no matter how outlandish, is just a normal part of life. Thinking of cutting off the arms of an old fur coat and wearing them as legwarmers? Great idea! Want to max out the use of your Dracula Halloween costume by rocking a floor-length cape year-round? By all means, please do! You can understand why Cirque du Soleil had to come from Quebec and nowhere else. Walkable. Bikeable. Hip. Fun. Stylish. Edgy. If I haven’t already convinced you of Montreal’s effortless cool and fun-loving ways, you should go and see for yourself why it’s one of the best cities in the world.

Source: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21611086-why-building-worlds-most-popular-city-so-difficult-and-expensive-bodies-bombs-and London’s costly construction Bodies, bombs and bureaucracy Why building in the world’s most popular city is so difficult and expensive Aug 9th 2014 | From the print edition CROSSRAIL, a new underground railway line, is the main engineering marvel near Tottenham Court Road station in London. Few passers-by realise that another immensely complex construction project is under way nearby. At Rathbone Place, an old postal sorting office is being demolished to make way for a new block of offices and apartments. The entire building must be removed through one narrow exit onto busy Oxford Street. Beneath the site lies a disused underground railway once run by Royal Mail, which must not be disturbed. Even as your correspondent visits, the developer, Great Portland Estates, discovers an ancient electricity cable buried under the foundations. Much of central London is being knocked down and rebuilt. Some 7m square feet of office space is due to be added this year—the most since 2003. Relative to the existing stock, more offices are going up in the capital than in any western European or North American city. Yet building offices (and homes) near the middle of the capital is shockingly expensive. Even before the cost of land is considered, it costs roughly a fifth more than erecting similar stuff in New York or Hong Kong, according to Turner and Townsend, a consultancy firm. The challenges at Rathbone Place help to explain why. London’s history throws up many problems. Unexploded bombs dropped by the Luftwaffe still turn up surprisingly often, as do interesting medieval bodies. The opening of Bloomberg’s new headquarters in the City was held up by the discovery of thousands of Roman artefacts, including a rare phallic good-luck charm. London’s underground networks—including the Tube, but also sewers, various government tunnels and oddities such as the Royal Mail railway—must be negotiated. The city’s medieval street pattern means that buildings cannot always have straightforward 90-degree corners. Narrow streets make moving vehicles and machinery around construction sites far more expensive than in other cities. Typically, construction begins with a small crane, which lifts in vehicles and in turn erects a bigger tower crane. These cranes cannot operate from roads or overhang existing buildings, which explains why so many of the ones in London are elaborate, multi-jointed things. Sometimes they must be custom-built. The planning system then adds all sorts of expensive complexities. In Westminster more than 75% of land is covered by 56 conservation areas protecting the historic appearances of streets, right down to the colour of paint on doors. At another Oxford Street site, Great Portland Estates must lift up an old façade and scoop out the rest of the building from behind it. During this process, neighbouring buildings must be protected—not only structurally but also from noise and dust. Taller buildings are trickier still. They must not block designated views of various landmarks, which explains why some of the skyscrapers in the City of London are oddly shaped. The curious wedge-shaped Leadenhall Building, known as “the cheesegrater”, is intended to protect a view of St Paul’s Cathedral from a pub in Fleet Street. The design also means that the building cannot have a central concrete core, as in most skyscrapers. Instead, the floors are held up by an innovative steel exoskeleton. This makes for a thrilling journey up the building’s glass lifts. But it does add somewhat to the cost. Developers have adapted to these constraints as best they can. Construction is modelled by computers long before the first crane is installed. Each day’s work is planned almost to the minute and materials delivered when they are needed, much like the “just-in-time” methods long used in car factories. Many parts are brought in ready made: fully 85% of the Leadenhall Building was manufactured in the Midlands and Northern Ireland. But the sheer complexity of building in the capital makes for a small, specialised industry with high barriers to entry. Outsiders who try to negotiate London’s planning system often get in trouble, notes Toby Courtauld, Great Portland’s boss. Getting projects approved requires more than mugging up on planning regulations: plenty of rules are unwritten, while political objections can be unpredictable. Incumbent developers know the vagaries of the system. Newcomers do not. All this raises costs, which are passed on to business tenants. And the slowness of building in the capital means that offices are often finished at the wrong time, at the low point in an economic cycle: a slump in construction starts three years ago means supply will crash next year. Putting up buildings is far quicker and easier in other cities, such as Birmingham and Manchester, and also in London suburbs such as Croydon. But developers persist with inner London anyway. Office rents and land values are high enough to support even some outrageously complicated projects. Leasing office space in the West End is twice as expensive as in Madison Avenue in New York. For all that the city’s skyline is dominated by cranes, were developers given free rein much more of central London would be being rebuilt. For firms struggling with high rents, that is frustrating. For Londoners who live and work next to construction sites, it may come as some consolation. From the print edition: Britain

via The Gazette : German magazine shines spotlight on Montreal’s Bernard St. BY JESSE FEITH, THE GAZETTE JULY 30, 2014 The biannual Flaneur Magazine dissects and features one street per issue. Photograph by: Flaneur Magazine , . Two years ago when Berlin-born Ricarda Messner moved back to her hometown after having lived in New York City, everything seemed a little different as she walked around, wandering from block to block and trying to get a feel for the once-familiar streets. She started thinking about those streets, about how they’re the fabric of any city: each one representing a different aspect of its neighbourhood. Wanting to put that idea into print, she founded the biannual Flaneur Magazine, which dissects and features one street per issue. Manfred Stoffl, director at Montreal’s Goethe Institut, which promotes German culture in Montreal, happened to be in Berlin when he read about Flaneur in Germany’s national daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine. He contacted Messner to find out where he could get a copy of the first issue. The two met over a coffee and Stoffl left her with the idea of the magazine featuring a street in Montreal. In October of last year, Messner found herself wandering around again, but this time in Montreal. She hopped on a Bixi bike and followed her gut, ending up on Bernard St. “Bernard is one of those streets which might not seem so obvious at first, but it made sense for us,” she said in an email. “Still to this day, there was no other street which gave us the same feeling — representing Montreal in a hyper local microcosm.” Messner says she was aware of what she called the special role Montreal’s bilingualism plays in Canada, but didn’t have a real picture of it until spending time on Bernard. She was intrigued by the stark contrast between the street’s Outremont and Mile End sides, as well as the francophone, anglophone and Jewish communities that populate its sidewalks, restaurants and shops. Messner and two editors moved into an apartment on Hutchison St. for two months, and together with local talent, got to work talking with shop owners, approaching people on the street and turning as many stones as possible. The result, published earlier this month, is a 136-page issue of Flaneur, written in English, that “embraces the street’s complexity, its layers and fragmented nature with a literary approach.” There’s a spread profiling Tammy Lau, of Dragon Flowers, who’s had different shops open on the street for the last 25 years, selling handmade sweaters, Chinese porcelains and eventually settling on flowers. Another two pages feature Dominic Franco Kawmi, who owns a shoe shop on the street. And yet another section speaks of Peter Hondros of Loft 9, an antique boutique in the Mile End. “Outsiders who come in and stay briefly are bound to see things differently than those who live here,” said Hondros after seeing the magazine. “So it was interesting to read their take.” When Flaneur worked on its second issue, featuring Georg-Schwarz-Strasse in Leipzig, the team faced a lot of skeptical people who wished the magazine would pick a different street. In Montreal, said Messner, the opposite happened. “The people we came across didn’t react like that at all. People were enthusiastic, debated with us if Bernard was the best choice or not, and at our launch party, those present seemed genuinely interested and excited about the magazine,” she said. “I can’t believe how quickly the team clicked with Montreal,” Stoffl added. “The issue gives a real authentic view of the city. They were here in the cold of the winter, but the issue is still very lively.”For the 52-year-old Hondros, Bernard is a street that’s in a state of flux, becoming younger, trendier and a little less “laid back” than it used to be — changes the magazine couldn’t necessarily pick up on during its two month stay. “To us, it was a compliment to have someone come here and like what they see,” he said. “But now we’ve moved on, and we’re just back to our daily routines.” The magazine’s Montreal issue was financed in part by the Goethe Institut and is on sale at Drawn & Quarterly on Bernard St. It can also be ordered online at flaneur-magazine.com. The Flaneur team is now setting up shop in Rome to work on its next issue. jfeith@montrealgazette.com Twitter: jessefeith © Copyright © The Montreal Gazette

plannersweb.com/2014/02/walmart-stores-go-small-urban/ <header style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Minion W01 Regular', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;"> Taking a Closer Look Walmart Stores Go Small and Urban by Edward McMahon </header>Can big box retailers think outside the box? A few years ago the idea of a pedestrian friendly big box store would have been laughable, but as urban living has become more popular the major chain retailers are paying attention and beginning to build urban format stores. On December 4, 2013 Walmart opened its first two stores in Washington, DC and the new stores illustrate the lengths to which brick and mortar retailers will go to get into rapidly growing urban markets. Compared to the old “grey-blue battleship box” that has saturated suburban and small town America, the new urban Walmart on H Street, NW in Washington is a remarkable departure. <figure id="attachment_13030" class="thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter" style="padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; border: none; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; -webkit-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; margin: 0px auto; width: 520px;"><figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; padding: 9px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">View of Walmart on H Street, NW in Washington, DC. Photo by Edward McMahon.</figcaption></figure> Whether you love them or loathe them, this building proves that Walmart — one of the most recognizable symbols of modern suburbia — is going urban. Who ever thought that Walmart shoppers could sleep upstairs and shop downstairs, but that is exactly what residents of the new Walmart near downtown Washington will be able to do. The 83,000 square ft. store built in partnership with JBG Rosenfeld is in a mixed use building topped by four stories of apartments. Instead of acres of asphalt, the parking is underground. In addition to the Walmart, there is another 10,000 square ft. of retail space wrapped around the outside of the retail giant. Retail tenants currently include a Starbucks and a bank, with more to follow. The residential portion of the building contains 303 apartments, a fitness center, a lounge area, a roof deck, and a swimming pool. <figure id="attachment_13034" class="thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter" style="padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; border: none; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; -webkit-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; margin: 0px auto; width: 520px;"><figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; padding: 9px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">View of roof deck and pool on top of the H Street Walmart in Washington, DC. Photo courtesy of JBG Companies.</figcaption></figure>The main store entrance sits right on the sidewalk and shoppers will use an escalator to reach the store level. The store itself offers more groceries than a typical Walmart and the shopping floor is day lighted by real windows. Designed by MV+A Architects and the Preston Partnership, the H Street Walmart is a handsome urban building with traditional human scale details. It includes cornices, individual multi-pane windows, an interesting corner feature at the main entrance, and a separate entrance for residents. It is a fully urban, pedestrian friendly building. Whether you love them or loathe them, this building proves that Walmart — one of the most recognizable symbols of modern suburbia — is going urban. While the H Street store is by far the better of the two new urban Walmart’s in Washington, the other new store on Georgia Avenue, NW is also a significant departure from the typical suburban store design. Built on the site of an abandoned car dealership, the Georgia Avenue Walmart is a 102,000 square foot store on a four acre site. <figure id="attachment_13036" class="thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter" style="padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; border: none; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; -webkit-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; margin: 0px auto; width: 520px;"><figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; padding: 9px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">View of the new Walmart on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC. Photo by Edward McMahon.</figcaption></figure>Given the small size of the property, the only way to build a large store was to eliminate surface parking and bring the store right up to the sidewalk. The parking is located in a garage located directly below the store. While the building is not mixed use, it does greet the street and represent a real evolution for Walmart. The lesson here is that cities that want good design are going to have to demand it. In addition to the two stores that opened in December, 2013, Walmart has announced plans for four additional stores in Washington. Based on a review of their plans, some will be walkable, urban format stores, others will not. Dan Malouff, a design critic with the Greater Greater Washington blog, says that one will be unquestionably urban, one will be a hybrid, and two will be almost completely suburban. 1 The lesson here is that cities that want good design are going to have to demand it. <figure id="attachment_13042" class="thumbnail wp-caption aligncenter" style="padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; border: none; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; -webkit-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; margin: 0px auto; width: 520px;"><figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; padding: 9px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">Design rendering of Walmart now under construction in Washington’s Fort Totten neighborhood. Graphic courtesy of JBG Companies.</figcaption></figure>Building an Urban Format Store Can Walmart build an urban format store? The answer appears to be yes, but it also appears that the only thing standard in an urban format big box store is its lack of standardization. Building suburban big box stores is simple. Buy a 20 acre suburban greenfield site. Build a large, free standing rectangular single floor building on a concrete slab. Plop the building in a sea of parking. A Walmart Supercenter in the suburbs of Atlanta, for example, is essentially identical to one in the suburbs of Chicago or Cincinnati. This model simply won’t work in a dense urban area. The two things that have kept Walmart out of cities were its inflexibility on design issues and opposition from labor unions and civic activists who oppose the company because of its low wages and negative impact on existing local businesses. Now that it appears that Walmart is willing (when pushed by local government) to adapt its stores to the urban environment, it is likely only a matter of time before the retail giant moves into cities all over the country. <figure id="attachment_13043" class="thumbnail wp-caption alignleft" style="padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; border: none; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; -webkit-box-shadow: none; box-shadow: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 320px;"><figcaption class="caption wp-caption-text" style="font-style: italic; font-size: 14px; padding: 9px; color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">Walmart Neighborhood Market in Chicago’s Loop. photo by Eric Allix Rogers, Flickr Creative Commons license.</figcaption></figure>Big Boxes are Getting Smaller Another thing that is clear is that big boxes are getting smaller. The new 80,000 square ft. Walmart in Washington is half the size of many suburban Supercenters. What’s more, Walmart is creating new formats uniquely designed for cities. The new Walmart Neighborhood Market, for example, is only 40,000 square feet while the so-called Walmart Express stores are only 15,000 square feet. Walmart has even opened two college stores, at Georgia Tech in Atlanta 2 and at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. 3 Each of these stores is less than 5000 square feet in size. [TABLE=class: tg, width: 475] <tbody>[TR] [TH=class: tg-acmm, bgcolor: #F1C40F]Store Type[/TH] [TH=class: tg-acmm, bgcolor: #F1C40F]Square Footage[/TH] [TH=class: tg-acmm, bgcolor: #F1C40F]Date Initiated[/TH] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: tg-031e]Discount Store[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]106,000 sq. ft.[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]1962[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: tg-031e]Supercenter[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]182,000 sq. ft.[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]1982[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: tg-031e]Neighborhood Market[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]38,000 sq. ft.[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]1998[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: tg-031e]Express Store[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]15,000 sq. ft.[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]2011[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD=class: tg-031e]College Store[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]Under 5,000 sq. ft.[/TD] [TD=class: tg-031e]2013[/TD] [/TR] </tbody>[/TABLE] Times have changed. The country’s largest retailers have oversaturated rural and suburban communities. The only place left with more spending power than stores is in our cities. Walmart has made its urban debut. The outstanding question remaining is: what impact will Walmart have on local economies and wages? Washington, DC, City Councilman Phil Mendelson, a co-sponsor of unsuccessful legislation that would have required big box retailers to pay a living wage and benefits, expressed skepticism about the impact of Walmart on the local economy. “I would say, having the world’s largest retailer interested in locating in the city where we’ve lost almost every other department store over the last four decades — that’s a good thing. Having an economic competitor who underprices the market and causes a descent to the bottom, in terms of wages — that is not a good thing.”4 While Walmart is clearly evolving to fit into cities, there is also evidence that the retail giant is willing to break the mold in smaller towns and suburbs. What About Smaller Towns & Suburbs? While Walmart is clearly evolving to fit into cities, there is also evidence that the retail giant is willing to break the mold in smaller towns and suburbs. This is because retail store size is shrinking due to the growth of internet shopping and also because suburbs are changing to stay competitive. Target, Whole Foods, Safeway, Giant, and other chains are already breaking the rules by building smaller footprint stores in multi-story buildings and mixed use developments. Walmart has recently opened several small town stores with parking under the building or with solar installations on the roof. What impact Walmart and other big box retailers will have on cities and the neighborhoods where they locate remains to be seen. Harriet Tregoning, the planning Director in Washington, DC, says that “Walmart does not offer any meaningful shopping experience. It competes solely on price and convenience.” 5Her message to small businesses is that “if you are in direct competition with Walmart you are in the wrong business to begin with.” Instead she says “businesses that offer something Walmart can’t like bars, restaurants and stores selling specialty goods or offering personalized levels of service — will continue to thrive.” In some ways, the idea of national chains opening big new urban stores is a return to the way things once were. In 1960, we called it department store. Today we call it a Walmart. Ed McMahon is one of the country’s most incisive analysts of planning and land use issues and trends. He holds the Charles Fraser Chair on Sustainable Development and is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, DC. McMahon is a frequent speaker at conferences on planning and land development. Over the past 21 years, we’ve been pleased to have published more than two dozen articles by McMahon in the Planning Commissioners Journal, and now on PlannersWeb.com. Notes: Dan Maloutt, “Walmart’s 6 DC stores: Some will be urban, some won’t” (Greater Greater Washington blog, April 26, 2012) ↩ Allison Brooks, “The world’s tiniest Walmart opens in Atlanta” (Atlanta Magazine, Aug. 14, 2013 ↩ Todd Gill, “Now open: Walmart on Campus” (Fayetteville Flyer, Jan. 14, 2011).↩ Ryan Holeywell, “Walmart Makes Its Urban Debut” (Governing Magazine, June 2012) ↩ Id. ↩

http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/401486/la-main-retourne-a-ses-sources

http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/2/5266704/street-lamps-transform-montreal-into-a-living-comic-book]The Verge This is something I did not expect to see on that site. Plus I am surprised that no one posted this yet, or someone already did and I did not see.

Suite au déménagement d'Encadrex, il y a une dizaine de jours, il y a eu plusieurs forages sur le terrain de stationnement arrière ainsi qu'autour de la bâtisse actuelle. J'ai demandé aux ouvriers et ils m'ont mentionné que le bâtiment allait être démoli prochainement pour un projet résidentiel, mais ils n'avaient aucune idée de quel type de projet il s'agissait. Street view: https://www.google.ca/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d-73.557651!3d45.499722!2m2!1f132.53!2f93.03!4f90!2m7!1e1!2m2!1sqTXe1_00O-t7-bCG-I1e4w!2e0!5m2!1sqTXe1_00O-t7-bCG-I1e4w!2e0&fid=5