orages lointains

What happened to the red panels??  Please bring those back!!  Best design feature!!

Also - these buildings are looking too similar.  Along with musique plus, the area is taking on a more banal flat glass panel look than we wanted.  I hope very much that the MAC renovation does not use the same style.   

Of the major downtown cultural buildings of the last few years - these three, the MBA addition, the ETS building(s) - all have the same look.  We need more color, more wood, more stone, more of anything by fritted glass panels!  Say no!  

I'm amazed that this is (apparently) under construction.  With how many projects take forever to come together, and often don't, this one appeared in, what, november, and they're driving piles in february?   It's a rental building, but still, very fast!

So, wait - they're building the residential component after all?  

Great aerial photo, by the way.  

Une chose que ne comprennent pas beaucoup de gens c'est que tout ce « quartier des gares » n'est qu'une nouvelle itération du quartier Concordia.  Cela n'était pas un méga-projet du style Milton Park ou le centre Dupuis Frères, mais tout comme les projets de ce « quartier des gares » cette île de densité là était conçu et construit par de nombreux sociétés, en réaction au zonage et aux demandes du marché, circonscrit/encouragé par des motivations du gouvernement (rabais dans le beau vieux temps, très faible taux d'intéret aujoud'hui).  

Bouder la faible qualité de l'architecture au « quartier des gares » c'est de ne pas comprendre le destin inévitable de ces immeubles en tant que logements abordables des années 2030s or 2040s.  Déjà on voit un peu cet avenir chez TDC1, la quasi-totalité duquel est consacré à la location.  Les promotteurs comprennent bien cette histoire et font le minimum possible au delà du requis pour la marchabilité.   Apart le Broc, il faut le dire.  

5 hours ago, steve said:

this is going to be at the forefront of Montreal’s entance

sad and cheap

Montréal ville de design ?  Really?!

At least they didn't demolish one of Montreal's most famous remaining buildings (the Children's) to built this version of the design.  

There is more than enough road space for any festival use.  It would take another sovereignty referendum for an event to use all the road and park space in the QdS area.  What we're looking at will be one of the ugliest public spaces in the core of the city, rarely if ever used, and it will cost tens of millions to build and millions to maintain.  A much more expensive and permanent sapin de la honte. 

Instead, the city could zone the land to 100m and sell it.  With that money, it could do something interesting with some other part of the area - for instance, contributing it to a fund to cover the rest of the Ville Marie.  Or, alternately, it could build a few hundred units of public housing to begin the Habitations Jeanne Mance redevelopment.  Build there, relocate people from the Jeanne Mance project, the start the demolish, relocate, rebuild cycle.  

Instead, it's tens of millions for the park equivalent of the Place Vauquelin/McTavish steps/sapin de la honte.  

On 1/30/2018 at 9:42 AM, ScarletCoral said:

 

 

That's four new commercial spaces!  Globally, all of this commercial space at 21e will really make a very significant impact in the quality of life for people living/working in the Faubourg des Récollets.    

One of the 20-25 stupidest ideas in the history of Montreal.  A "park" situated on an alley, against the back side of the main police station, next to a giant artery (Maisonneuve), in a neighborhood that already has an enormous amount of public space, at a huge public cost.  It's just a terrible idea.  Not as bad as the 1950s demolitions, but definitely as bad as the Children's demolition.  

This land should never have been expropriated.  And once Tremblay was out, it should have been sold to a developer, or developed by the city into apartments. 

This is another area of the downtown where a high density of towers like on rue de la Concorde would do a world of good.  Perhaps ten 30-40 story towers, radially from the metro station, ground floor commercial space, no parking garage. 

15 hours ago, urbino said:

Pourriez-vous nous donner des exemples de grands secteurs du centre-ville de Montréal qui sont complètement morts?

 Cela serait apprécié, pour qu'on puisse mieux vous comprendre.

The area surrounding McGill is dead dead dead in the evening.  Victoria square too, Chaboillez, President Kennedy, Habitations Jeanne Mance, and more.  The Pres-Ken/McGill College/PVM area is the worst.  

5 hours ago, Kilgore Trout said:

I live in Hong Kong. The most densely built parts of the city (where it's nothing but tower blocks) are the most boring. It's the areas where you have a mix of buildings, or even just mid-rise walkup buildings with the occasional tower, that have the best streetlife.

Yeah, I've spent time in HK too.  For me, a Wan Chai or Stanley level of density and street life is something greatly to be desired.  I love that.  Plus Downtown Montreal is totally dead in great swathes, basically because nobody lives there.  

45 minutes ago, fmfranck said:

Bien vu! Ça ne laisse quand même pas beaucoup d'espace!

A Paris, à NY, meme à San Francisco - La Mecque Nord Américain du NIMBY - c'est tout-à-fait normal qu'on construit à proximité des fenêtres des immeubles adjoints.  Tant pis que l'ancien immeuble ait construit jusqu'à la limite du terrain, mettons un recul de 1-2m entre les fenêtres le mur et hop!  

En ce qui concerne ce projet, on est décu que l'ancien projet de Laliberté est à l'abandon . . . 

I'd love to see the density on this block repeated throughout the city center and even parts of the Plateau, Rosemont, Hochelaga, etc.  Hong-treal.  

So many more people living there would mean/more better restaurants and bars, along with a more energetic ambiance and atmosphere.  Still, so much of the center city feels empty, particularly at night, with only the Sainte-Cath strip.  The return of 10,000-15,000 full time residence would make a giant change.  

Normally, I'd say that it's too short - particularly since it replaced a 2 story building and a pretty good little casse-croute.  

But this is directly facing the church, so it's okay if it's a little shorter.  

5 hours ago, FrancSoisD said:

Du coup, il faut admettre que le site est exigu, puis est collé sur un dessous de viaduc un McDo et une station-service... Ce ne sont pas des conditions gagnantes!

Isn't that service station for sale/recently sold?    

On 12/19/2017 at 2:04 PM, UrbMtl said:

 

That's a nice tower for that site.  I still don't understand why so many people want to live at the Bell Center.  Hopefully they max out the unit count instead of going super high end.  Has old Broc announced anything about this?  I didn't even realize that they had purchased the site.  

Hopefully, this is designed not to interfere with the pedestrianization of that part of Gauchetiere.   And while we're on that subject, Plante should get the Dominion Square/Canada Place renovations back on track, please.  

There's something pleasingly malevolent about this complex.  I like it a lot.  

The most beautiful completion of the last 2 years (aside from the Anderson street side).  Quite surprising how much good architecture is finding its way to Gauchetière Street.  

On 11/21/2017 at 9:25 PM, GDS said:

Sales brisk, Broccolini set to build luxury Montreal condos

.... 

The building, located on the last parcel of redevelopment land available in the vicinity of Victoria Square, is scheduled to be completed in 2021.

Who do they think they're fooling?  There's a giant, block-long parcel directly on Victoria Square that has sat vacant for at least 25 years.  Just on Saint Jacques, 80% of the adjacent block is occupied by surface parking lots.  Within a 1 minute walk of this building, there are at least 8 parcels occupied by surface parking lots.  

This is either bad journalism or real estate puffery.  No!

Still, I like this building much more now that I first did.  The back side looks better than the front.  

10 hours ago, jerry said:

Land for construction of new condo towers is a rarity in the Quartier – a densely packed patch of land containing 80 venues and eight public squares and equipped to accommodate 40 festivals throughout the year – so the result is a tight condo market, Mr. Jussaume said. "There is very little supply in the area. At the same time there is high demand because of the attractiveness of the location. That's a key driver, while supply is somewhat limited."

This isn't very serious.  There's a lot of land in the vicinity, the problem is that demand isn't high enough to entice the builders.  All of Saint Laurent could be rebuilt.  Yaccarini isn't even developing the tower portion of his project.  The Spectrum buildings, the empty lots next to the military building on Bleury.  There's a huge surface parking lot in the center of the district.  Within a very short walk, you have large sites at Aylmer St, Phillips Square, SNC Lavalin, and Jeanne-Mance.  

It's great and impressive that the area is re-populating, but it's not red hot or anything.  

^ it's crucifyingly ugly and unambitious but it protects the tower views.

4 hours ago, Rocco said:

This is a private property. Geez.

I was talking about the thing I quoted, the Place Vauquelin, not the PVM, which is an improvement.

10 hours ago, MontréalMartin said:

On le voit clairement sur l'accès à la place Vauquelin. 

I hate this.  They ruined this, they ruined the McTavish steps, they totally destroyed the western part of Île Sainte-Hélène, they almost ruined Place Jacques Cartier.  I'm glad Coderre is gone.  PM should fix these mistakes.