SupremeMTL

August 14

August 14th, the site is getting pretty deep

August 14th

August 14

August 12

August 14th

August 14th, demolition is about to begin for sure, the whole site is fenced off and crews are on site

August 14th, the parking lot is fenced off

Hello all! Im back with another poll, this time about potential new sports teams in Montreal. A little backstory, I've often been in many discussions with my friends about which sports team Montreal should push for next and our discussions always come down to 3 main points supporting a team for each of the big three leagues in North America. 1) Montreal should get an NBA team, look at the Raptors and their recent success, Montreal is an international city with many of its citizens immigrating from or coming to study here from African and Asian countries where basketball is popular (Angola, China, Taiwan, Philippines, Cameroon, Nigeria, Congo) for example. A basketball arena already exists in the Bell Center (1996) and the team could play there. Montreal's NBA basketball team would naturally rival the Raptors and would make for exciting match-ups. Link - https://www.cbc.ca/sports/basketball/nba/nba-montreal-1.4857187 2) Montreal should get an MLB team, we used to have the Expos. Already there is talk about the Tampa Bay Rays splitting games between their home arena in Tampa Bay and playing in Montreal. Stephen Bronfman (son of former Expos owner Charles Bronfman) has already expressed interest in owning the Expos should they ever come back to Montreal. Arena talks are underway near the griffintown / peel basin area and would greatly aid Montreal in getting a team back. Link - https://montrealgazette.com/sports/todd-stephen-bronfman-embraces-plan-to-bring-baseball-back-to-montreal 3) Montreal should get an NFL team, the NFL is looking to expand already to places like London or Mexico City. If the NFL realizes that those two cities are too logistically challenging and they wont pursue them, then the NFL could look at a closer to home option in Montreal as realistically it is the only viable city in Canada that could support an NFL team. The NFL can't expand to Toronto because the Buffalo Bills would veto it. They can't expand to Vancouver because the Seattle Seahawks would veto it. Toronto already holds the title as "Canada's NBA team", and maybe the NFL would like to try and have the Montreal NFL team marketed as "Canada's NFL team". Link - https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/06/07/expansion-cities-san-diego-portland-montreal-oklahoma-city-bismarck-anchorage I am curious to what you guys think is the best argument below. Please feel free to add anything that i may have forgotten. This discussion is purely hypothetical and aims at being a fun place to build on / argue against differentiating points. Thank you for reading!

Which project are you referring to? Isin't Herzing college (1616RL) between WSP and 1650 RL? There is a 120m project on that lot?

Agreed, not to mention Entacy and Dorchester Appartments should contribute as well

August 10th, taken from the highest floor of Concordia University's John Molson School of Business on Guy and De Maisonneuve

August 10th, Taken from the highest floor of John Molson School of Business

August 10th, I estimate around 12 floors to go + Mechanical room. Picture taken from highest floor of John Molson School of Business.

De Atwater au Palais de Justice de Montréal

Article published in the Gazette on friday: Montreal facing a crunch to pay for continued transit operations "We would be in a very embarrassing situation in the future, having built it, and not being able to operate it, unless we tell people they will have to fork out a lot more to travel," Marvin Rotrand said. JASON MAGDER, MONTREAL GAZETTE Updated: August 2, 2019 With new projects on the way, and existing networks aging, several local city councillors are concerned Montreal could soon run out of cash to run its public transit services. Two opposition councillors tabled a resolution Friday afternoon calling on all of the federal parties to pledge in the upcoming election to provide funds to pay for the operations of transit networks on a recurrent basis. Marvin Rotrand and Aref Salem co-sponsored the motion, which will be presented at the Aug. 19 city council meeting. They say without a new source of funding, Montrealers will have to shell out more money, either in the form of tax increases or fare hikes, just to maintain the current level of service. Rotrand said the federal government has committed billions to help pay for the $6.3 billion REM light-rail project, and the extension of the métro’s Blue Line, and other transit projects are also underway: the SRB Pie IX — a bus rapid transit network along Pie-IX Blvd., and the order of 300 new hybrid buses. All those projects mean a greater bill at the end of the day to operate the networks, which will fall on the city’s transit agencies to pay. It’s not yet clear what all the new transit projects will cost in recurrent operations, because the Autorité regionale de transport métropolitain — the body that governs regional transport planning — is calculating their cost, said ARTM spokesperson Fanie St-Pierre. The agency plans to make its analysis public this coming fall, so she would not comment on the situation this week. “We would be in a very embarrassing situation in the future, having built it, and not being able to operate it, unless we tell people they will have to fork out a lot more to travel,” Rotrand said. “That would defeat the purpose of everything we have done up to now.” However, it’s unclear if the resolution will be passed at Montreal city hall, because the ruling Projet Montréal would also have to vote for it, and Geneviève Jutras, a spokesperson for the city’s executive committee would not say whether the mayor’s party would support the motion. She said, however, the administration will make its requests to the federal parties in the coming weeks. Rotrand said he is forwarding a copy of the resolution to cities across the country so there can be a united front of municipalities asking the federal government for the same thing. The situation is similar in many cities in the country, explained Matti Siemiatycki, the interim director of the school of cities for the University of Toronto. He explained that every time a new transit project is unveiled, it’s the cities that are left with the burden of paying for its recurrent cost. He said politicians like to make promises to finance new projects like the REM or the métro extension, but it’s less popular to pay for their ongoing operation. Investing in operations, however, is the best way to ensure that transit systems run on time and deliver good quality service for the users, he said. He added that like Montreal, Toronto is also in an uncertain position, because it has deferred major maintenance projects for several years, and there is now a major backlog of work to the tune of billions of dollars. “In this region at least, we talk at great length about how much new capital projects will cost, but spend much less time thinking about how we’re going to pay for operations or maintenance,” he said. Siemiatycki said without new money, most cities in the country will have the same choice to either hike fares or taxes, or put major maintenance projects on hold. Marco D’Angelo, the CEO of the Canadian Urban Transit Association, said his organization has asked the federal parties to top up the gas tax contribution to cities by $250 million, and that money would be dedicated exclusively to transit operations. “It would allow cities to make transportation more frequent and more reliable,” he said. “We’re seeing that cities across Canada now need to make tough choices in terms of prioritizing operations. There’s certainly demand for increased transit in our cities, and without the right investment, as our city populations increase, we’re going to have continued problems with bottlenecks.” The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has also called on the federal parties to commit to more money for transit. It has asked for the federal gas tax fund — which funds transit and infrastructure — to be permanently doubled to $4.4 billion, a measure that CUTA has supported. https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/city-facing-a-crunch-to-pay-for-continued-transit-operations

Bird's Eye view of South Shore station, taken from https://rem.info/en/news/south-shore-summer-2019

I mean, whenever you build something you will always piss off someone because they will lose their view. The only solution is to buy something with protected views but even that is harder nowadays as the terms of the protected views can be challenged in court. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/montreals-spectacular-vistas-being-crowded-out-by-high-risedevelopment/article37716140/ Quote from the article: "Montreal businessman Jacques Schonberg found out the hard way that the magnificent views included with his high-end condo weren't guaranteed when a new condo tower went up right next door to his a few years ago. "I lost my whole eastern and southern views, pretty well," Mr. Schonberg says of his 23rd-floor condo in downtown Montreal's Crystal de la Montagne tower on René-Lévesque Boulevard. "I had a spectacular view" in the building – a 2008 project – before construction of the 38-storey Tour Icône right next door, he said. "Now, I see right into other people's windows." His perspective on Mount Royal remains, but he lost sightlines to Olympic Stadium to the east and to the river to the south" Another good tip would be to steer clear of parking lots. Quote from the same article: "Some residents happily ensconced in the luxe 33-storey, 192-unit Altitude condo tower directly across the street from Place Ville Marie found to their dismay a few years ago that their views were to be imperilled when permits were obtained for construction of the TOM Condos complex, 40 floors stacked extremely close up against Altitude's southeastern flank. "There were complaints, yes," said Daniel Revah, president of Corev Immobilier, TOM's developer. But he points out that the TOM follows a familiar pattern of being built on a former above-ground parking lot. Smart condo purchasers in most North American cities should know that if their tower is close to a parking lot, chances are good that that parcel of land will eventually be built upon, particularly if the location is a prime one such as Montreal's downtown, Mr. Revah said. "Parking lots in all the cities, including Montreal, are being eliminated," he said."

Official Press Release from the ADMTL website on the groundbreaking of the Airport REM station

Im sure that when the project is done they will replant new ones, as their roots are probably going to be damaged during the construction anyway.

Could incomes have something to do with it? Using this household incomes chart you can see that on average, families in Ottawa, Halifax, Victoria and Winnipeg make more money then families in Quebec City. Could you then make the assumption that families in those cities have a higher disposable income then Quebec City families, leading to more vacations and more reasons to fly? Just a thought.

ah ok, je ne savais pas. Maintenant je me sens mal pour mes fausses informations 😅

Yes good point, the reason i have it as an option is because the only "parks" downtown that we have are Square Victoria and Dorchester Square and the only parks opening in the near future that i know of are in Griffintown. With the real estate boom in full force, and old parking lots being converted to tall glass towers, there will be less and less opportunities to make parks.

Yes i agree with you that the city is often handcuffed with their options, if you look just recently Heritage Canada is fighting tooth and nail to keep Silo #5 even though it keeps getting broken into and vandalized and is an eyesore to look at from the waterfront. However, what the city of Montreal can do is propose solutions to the Federal and Provincial governments in hopes that something will be done instead of just sitting there and doing nothing as the Olympic Stadium keeps costing tax payers millions of dollars to run every year with no tenant.

Eh bien, au moins l'espace sera utilisé