Djentmaster001

So days after Plante and her admin said they want 24H nightlife, they have cut funding (completely) for MTL24/24 and reduced funding for SAT MTL, two important factors for promoting events and nightlife in the city... and successful events. This admin is not serious at all.

Prehos (based in Quebec City) opened a new office in MTL. (Let's see how fast this new news gets posted elsewhere without credit)

So everyone I spoke to about this plan, business community members to daily citizens all feel the plan is garbage and offers nothing new. That just shows how not serious our admin is.

Yeah... all of downtown should have designated 24H nightlife zones, not sure why they're limiting it to one area. Crescent should benefit, Chinatown should as well, Old MTL, the village. Etc.. having it in one area is a weird move. I'm still disappointed that the city is not giving tax breaks either. If it can afford to spend $1.8B over 10 years in one area, they can afford to have tax holidays, encourage investments and new business, recoup and gain $$$. Yet...here we are again having this convo about the city having such a narrow direction.

^ I hate to say it, but MTL is pretty much dead, it's become a mediocre city and we've declined so hard in all aspects. Sometimes, it feels like the city is cursed, we can't have more than 5 years of prosperity before people **ck it up. The city has become depressing, not as bad as the 90s but it's getting there. The homeless & drug epidemic, vacant storefronts exploding, lack of new builds/any news, add the economic conditions, inflation, etc... it's been 4 years of hardship and it feels like it won't end anytime soon.

I have to read this in depth, however, 24H nightlife only for Quartier Latin but not Crescent? The whole downtown should be a 24/7 zone. Happy to see they officially expanded downtown boundaries Looks like no incentives to reduce taxes or ask the province for powers to grant tax breaks/credits to build units... nor reduce red tape. Socially mixed language again... clearly won't work anymore, typical jargon... how long will those 15K units take to build? At this pace it'll be 20 years... Edit: had a proper look, what a mediocre plan... typical

-38% yet the city grows by 100K, too much red tape from Velo Val and company.

Absolutely wild and shameful.

Nice seeing Agora peeps (again) taking stuff I break on here and not give me (and the forum, really) credit.

Humanis talent acqusition & advisory expanded to Montreal, opening their practice in the commercial portion of this building

That's correct, it's down two floors, I think the floor plates are slightly larger as well. Even then, they still went ahead and acquired 330K sq ft of additional space, which is wild. I asked my contacts if anything fell through before NB took over. They said start-ups were eyeing the space, but nothing manifested. I think Ac-x was also scouting that too.

Correct, I broke this in the VSLP thread a while back. Still funny that they shaved off two floors on their HQ, only to buy and lease 330K sq ft of office space + commerical space after....

I'm surprised it took JdeM or any other news outlet this long to write about it lol. Been months already.

They're more than a few "dozen" workers, you have people working at data centres, separate offices, segments, people from head offices, etc... I disagree with the tax credits, we need them to remain competitive to low tax jurisdictions. All of the incentives here have led to gains and we get more $$$ in return than spending on programs. Hydro Quebec will be (finally) expanding their resources and capabilities to meet energy demands... if you think Data Centres are "bad", I'd be more worried on electric vehicles and batteries, we're expanding too fast on that. At least data centres are energy efficient and have the technology to reduce consumptions but still meet demand.

Not OVH, it's a Dutch company

Canada's data centre market to grow 'in a big way': Cologix president Adding on to that, I know of a relatively large European HQ'd data centre company planning multiple expansions here, they already have a presence, but will continue to grow in 2024. https://renx.ca/canadas-data-centre-market-to-grow-in-a-big-way-cologix-president

^ Perspective is key: I personally know developers here, and they 100% want to build buildings over 200 metres, some even want supertalls. The Square Children's project on initial conception, the developer wanted a 100 floor tower there (Coderre refused it and we got 120 metres, the Montreal standard). But with the rules in place, current economic conditions, how expensive everything is, we are not going to see anything significant for a long time, sadly. We had Tremblay, who increased heights in certain parts of downtown, but decreased it in certain parts as well. Coderre V.1, sure, we had some height bumps here and there, but he refused to scrap the 200 metre rule (V.2 then campaigned to scrap this rule and people hated it). Plante, definitely obsessed with capping everything at 60 or 80 metres + additional red tape, developers do not want those additional costs, so we get watered down projects. Therefore, it's not only Plante's fault, we've had the demand, and I'd argue we still do, but every mayor during the building boom has refused to scrap this outdated rule. If I was in charge, I'd scrap the rule and would not give a flying **ck about activists or nimbys who complain, or use the bull S**t excuse that "Montreal will be like every city". We need to build and it's time to build like a major city and not a mid-tier one.

https://statistique.quebec.ca/en/produit/tableau/caracteristiques-du-marche-du-travail-donnees-mensuelles-desaisonnalisees-regions-administratives-et-ensemble-du-quebec#tri_es=8

Unemployment in Quebec may be at 4.7% as of December 2023, but the Island of Montreal was at 7.7%, it will only go higher now that we're in a recession, sadly.

I will eventually pass by and take photos progressively

Gremse-IT GmbH launching their new office in Montreal, company from Germany.

For downtown, this is what happens (and I say this again) when you have idiots in charge that are regressive. Being downtown daily, I get to observe this on a daily occurrence. To sum up: - Endless construction and coordination so bad that even people with half a brain could probably coordinate better = discourages people to come - Parking metres now until 11pm, done without any consultation. - Increase in property taxes + covid loan re-payments, it's hurting everyone. - STM issues- mainly the increased presence of homeless people, discouraging people to venture downtown and stay at home. - Workers are not coming back 5x a week... I think it will stay this way for a while. I go to the office every day, I'd say only a handful do that, others are there 2-3x a week (less now due to the strikes). Downtown is hovering at 80% vs pre-pandemic levels, although Wednesdays-Thursdays sometimes surpass pre-pandemic levels pedestrian wise. This is also the case during the summer. - All levels of government have not invested enough in downtown or to incentivise people to go back downtown. The tuition bull S**t from the CAQ will also harm downtown even more starting next year. - Recession, inflation, less spending, obviously will lead to retailers being hurt. However, on the bright side: - New to market players have made their presence downtown, will continue next year but it will be at a slower pace. - New part of St. Catherine is booming, vacancy rates are insanely low - We'll lose retail, but gain restaurants, I'm okay with that. - Festival season this summer broke records, which will most likely lead to a longer festival season and investment (if all parties agree, obvs) and will lead to more people going back. - With Maestria being close to full completion, along with SP1, and Livmore phase 1 (which is almost 100% leased) just those projects alone will add about 4K people downtown. Retail is fine close to residential areas, it's the ones located in purely office areas that are struggling. I'm not too worried yet, it's been a tough 3 years and it will take a while to recover. But we have to remember, not only are governments, world events and economic factors to blame, but so are people's behaviours. I always hear people complain about downtown "dying" but also do nothing to go support downtown (screw anyone like that, btw).

The plans spanning from 2013 always had a smaller third phase included, literally nothing changed and it's not Plante's fault either. I too, wish it was taller, but the density is fantastic anyways, we get an awesome pastry shop and the neighbourhood feels livelier.

Actually.... it was always planned to be 20 floors and the city capped it that way due to them not wanting over-densification... had nothing to do with the mob or money laundering.....