Shaughnessy Village: A work in progress

[jesseps]

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Stabbing+victim+danger+police/2690641/story.html

 

Some woman had her throat slashed in the Faubourg's Dollarama yesterday evening. That area is getting worse and worse....

 

I hope that woman pulls through.

 

I just hope there was some security camera footage that can has the person face on it.

 

I really need to get out of that neighbourhood.

[jesseps]

Police have charged a 38-year-old man with attempted murder in connection with a brutal assault in the Faubourg Ste. Catherine on Tuesday.

 

According to police Constable Olivier Lapointe, the suspect turned himself in to police Thursday.

 

The victim, a 47-year-old woman, is still in a medically induced coma in hospital, but is expected to live. She reportedly had her throat slashed while shopping at the Dollarama on the second floor of the mall.

 

The cause of the attack has not been determined, but an argument had reportedly taken place before the assault.

 

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)

[MTLskyline]

Apparently they don't know each other. That makes it a little more creepy.

 

Not sure if I mentionned this or not, but a lot of people are getting mugged near the McDonald's on the corner of Mackay and Saint-Catherine Street. That's only a block away (for those not familiar with the area). Here's the link: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Teens+targeted+muggers+downtown+aren+loving/2614659/story.html

 

The best advice is to anyone (particularly women) is to probably just avoid Saint-Catherine Street west of Bishop at night if you are walking alone. There are a ton of crazies along there. De Maisonneuve is just a block north and is a lot safer (more students/local residents, less nuts).

[SPQR]

Apparently they don't know each other. That makes it a little more creepy.

 

Not sure if I mentionned this or not, but a lot of people are getting mugged near the McDonald's on the corner of Mackay and Saint-Catherine Street. That's only a block away (for those not familiar with the area). Here's the link: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Teens+targeted+muggers+downtown+aren+loving/2614659/story.html

 

The best advice is to anyone (particularly women) is to probably just avoid Saint-Catherine Street west of Bishop at night if you are walking alone. There are a ton of crazies along there. De Maisonneuve is just a block north and is a lot safer (more students/local residents, less nuts).

 

Damn, I use to go to that mcdonalds everytime, it was 2 blocks from my french school, it was always during lunchtime though.

[vincethewipet]

There are rumblings of change in Shaughnessy Village, and architect Phyllis Lambert, the neighbourhood's most famous guardian, couldn't be happier.

 

The company that owns the abandoned Seville Theatre at Ste. Catherine and Chomedey Sts. is close to announcing the start of work to redevelop a block that has been like a canker for the neighbourhood for more than two decades, The Gazette has learned.

 

Claridge Properties Ltd. re-surfaced about a week ago to jump-start discussions with the Ville Marie borough, which includes Shaughnessy Village, on its project to build student residences, borough spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée said.

 

An announcement is expected in a couple of weeks.

 

The company, owned by Stephen Bronfman, grandson of Seagram's founder Samuel Bronfman, has found a partner to construct the project, Lavallée added.

 

The borough hadn't heard from Claridge since Montreal city council approved the $100-million project last year.

 

The firm did not return The Gazette's calls.

 

If anyone could be credited with lighting a fire under the developer, it may be Lambert, Bronfman's aunt and the saviour of the century-old mansion on René Lévesque Blvd. between St. Marc and Fort Sts. that gave the neighbourhood its name.

 

Though she lives in Old Montreal, Lambert has been an instigator in Shaughnessy Village for years in an effort to revitalize a neighbourhood that she considers the city's greatest area of heritage after Old Montreal.

 

In 1974, she bought the Shaughnessy mansion to save it from the wrecker's ball. Today, it forms part of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, founded by Lambert.

 

"This is clearly one of the great areas of the city," Lambert said this week.

 

"It could be an absolutely magnificent place."

 

Shaughnessy Village is one of the few residential downtown neighbourhoods in North America, but it was hammered by the city's economic downturn in the 1980s and '90s and by "the bloody Seville," as Lambert put it.

 

She sees the development of the Seville block as the catalyst to revitalize an area that's a mix of rundown buildings, 1970s architectural "junk," as she calls it, and lovingly renovated Victorian homes.

 

Nicknamed Joan of Architecture, Lambert has a long history of saving heritage.

 

In 2005, frustrated by the city's long neglect of Shaughnessy Village, she assembled more than 20 local stakeholders, including commercial and institutional property owners, businesses and the Shaughnessy Village Association, to form a roundtable to sort out the area's future.

 

The members raised $30,000 to hire the non-profit group Convercité in 2006 to assess the area's strengths and problems and propose a development plan. The group submitted the plan to the borough, urging it to design a neighbourhood urban plan, given that the area was ignored in the city's 2004 master plan.

 

The roundtable then raised money in 2008 to hold a design charrette, which draws together architects to draft a solution to a design problem, for Cabot Square. The drawings of three firms were posted in the Pepsi Forum to elicit public feedback, which was integrated into a report the roundtable gave the city.

 

A common theme was to draw more green through the neighbourhood, which sits at the foot of the mountain and houses the estates of the Sulpician Fathers on Sherbrooke St., the Grey Nuns on René Lévesque and the CCA.

 

Ste. Catherine needs shops that will attract people from across the city, sidewalk cafés and trees, Lambert said. And the area needs social housing, high-end homes and student residences, she said. The area's itinerants, and the community organizations that serve them, have a place here as well, she said.

 

The roundtable's efforts appear to be paying off.

 

Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay, who is also mayor of the borough, plans to unveil an urban plan for the neighbourhood, as well as an urban plan for eastern downtown, in a few weeks, his spokesperson Darren Becker said yesterday

 

Still, Lambert is critical of Tremblay on the planning front. His administration has ignored opposition to some city projects and it's late in revising the master plan. City hall is fixated on big-ticket projects, she said.

 

"There's a lack of vision," she said, "there's a lack of guts ... a lack of excitement."

 

So the roundtable acts as a substitute for the city, where developers like her nephew discuss their plans and accept criticism from Lambert.

 

Bronfman told his aunt a couple of weeks that the Seville project will go ahead.

 

"And I was thrilled because it's so central," Lambert said.

 

"I see my role as trying to organize it. I initiated that effort of putting everybody together. What could I do more at this point?"

 

To view the designs and report on the charrette held for Cabot Square, go to convercite.org/article.php?id=1204749487〈_id=fr

 

lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com

 

THE PROBLEM WITH THE VILLAGE

 

Hear Phyllis Lambert express her frustration with the long-standing neglect of Shaughnessy Village in a video by Phil Carpenter of The Gazette, at montrealgazette.com/videos

 

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Joan+Architecture+rescue/2755580/story.html

 

enfin de l'action dans ce secteur?

[acpnc]

Et s'il y a quelqu'un qui est vraiment concerné par ce quartier c'est bien Phyllis Lambert, qui non seulement a un incroyable ascendant sur cette partie de la ville, mais elle et sa famille ont les moyens pour réaliser leurs désirs.

 

Je suis simplement surpris qu'elle ait gardé un profil bas si longtemps sur le sujet et pratiquement abandonné toute pression visible pour changer les choses. Il y avait pourtant urgence, mais bon je me console en voyant que soudainement tout le monde semble se réveiller en même temps dans cette ville et que les projets enfin se matérialisent réellement.

[steve_36]

Shaughnessy Village: Opposition growing to 'mega bar'

Two boîtes on Ste. Catherine St. W. to expand into a half-block food and drink emporium.

By LINDA GYULAI, The Gazette July 23, 2010

 

MONTREAL - Shaughnessy Village resident Cahill Rooney says yes to development, yes to drinking, but no to what amounts to a "mega bar" in his neighbourhood.

 

Rooney sums up his view of a plan to expand La Station des Sports and La Boîte à Karaoke bars at St. Catherine St. W. and Fort St. into a half-block food and drink emporium - with a combined capacity of 940 people - with a reluctant no.

 

"I'm not against drinking or bars or pubs, but I think a massive bar that will primarily attract students is probably a temptation for excessive drinking that's just too much," said the high school teacher, who has lived in the western downtown neighbourhood for eight years.

 

Rooney's comments seem to sum up the dilemma for a number of area residents, who say they welcome the renewal of the graffiti-covered row of buildings at 2051-2071 Ste. Catherine W. that houses the bars, but not the size of project proposed by Peter Sergakis, who owns the property and the bars.

 

Sergakis counters that the Station des Sports, which is the larger of the two, is as much a restaurant as it is a bar. The project, he says, will improve the forlorn strip of Ste. Catherine by drawing customers to it.

 

The Ville Marie borough this week posted a notice on its website that it will open a register for opponents of the project on Aug. 25.

 

At least 291 eligible voters who live or own businesses in a limited area around the project will have to sign the register that day to force a referendum to decide the fate of the project.

 

The borough was hard-pressed yesterday to explain its choice of zones whose occupants will be eligible to sign the register and vote in a referendum.

 

For instance, residents on the south side of Tupper St. west of Fort, one street below the project, are excluded, borough spokesperson Jacques-Alain Lavallée confirmed. People as far as Lincoln Ave., three streets away, get a say, however.

 

Rooney's home abuts the rear of the project, where the plans call for an outdoor terrasse that alone will fit 251 people, the borough says. He and his neighbours will be allowed to sign the register. But he said yesterday he knows nothing about it. He has received no notice from the borough, he said.

 

The borough council, presided over by Mayor Gérald Tremblay, voted to give special permission for Sergakis's project in May because it breaches several parts of the borough's urban planning bylaw.

 

Drinking establishments in the sector cannot exceed 200 square metres, under the bylaw. Sergakis's businesses will be expanded to a combined floor space of 1,112 square metres.

 

The project calls for the existing ground-floor shops between the two bars to be removed and both bars expanded in their place so they will sit side-by-side.

 

The borough is exempting Sergakis from having to provide any parking spaces or a delivery loading dock. Moreover, the bylaw doesn't permit a terrasse to be built adjacent to residences, as is called for in the project. The zoning bylaw also requires a minimum distance of 50 metres between drinking establishments in the sector. Even with the existing shops between them, the Station des Sports and the Karaoke bar are already fewer than 50 metres apart.

 

Lavallée, however, said the businesses that existed on both spots before the regulation went into force in 1994 already had liquor permits, so the two current establishments have acquired rights.

 

The portion of Ste.Catherine that's west of St. Mathieu St. is a mix of residential and commercial and is surrounded by residential side streets.

 

Station des Sports and the Karaoke bar are among six small bars in a three-block stretch of Ste. Catherine extending from St. Mathieu to Chomedey St.

 

"Our project is the best thing that could happen to that area," Sergakis said, noting he's planning to invest $6 million.

 

The project will complement, not conflict with, a condo project planned for the former Seville Theatre block at Ste. Catherine and Lambert Closse St., he said.

 

It's unfair to call the project a "mega bar," Sergakis added. The Station des Sports is a fully licensed drinking establishment, but three-quarters of its business comes from selling food, including breakfast, he said.

 

"Just look at the building, the way it is," Sergakis said of the present state of the three buildings that make up the property.

 

"It's an eyesore. Half of it is burned, (there's) graffiti, rats, garbage. The lane is terrible."

 

Sergakis said he has owned the building for 40 years. He added he owns 10 buildings in the area.

 

"I would never want to do anything to devalue the area," he said. "I want the area to grow."

 

The maximum capacity will be 940 people, but Sergakis said it's unlikely the interior and the terrasse will be full at any one time. A 4-metre-high wall would enclose the terrasse and cut noise, he said.

 

Sergakis added that he ordered a noise study that found road traffic in the area is louder than the noise the clients on the terrasse would make. The customers would be mainly local, so parking isn't necessary, he added.

 

Sergakis also estimates that "99 per cent" of residents support his project.

 

If they're like Rooney, enthusiasm for something to be done with the buildings doesn't mean automatic acceptance of the project.

 

"I think it would be better if he opened three or four smaller establishments," Rooney said, suggesting restaurants.

 

"The one thing I don't think is good is one gigantic mega-type bar."

 

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Shaughnessy+Village+Opposition+growing+mega/3307396/story.html#ixzz0uZFXeqO8

[steve_36]

Shaughnessy Village: Opposition growing to 'mega bar'

Two boîtes on Ste. Catherine St. W. to expand into a half-block food and drink emporium.

 

.......plan to expand La Station des Sports and La Boîte à Karaoke bars at St. Catherine St. W. and Fort St. into a half-block food and drink emporium - with a combined capacity of 940 people - .

 

 

Je suis passé devant cette semaine et il y a de l'activité. D'ailleurs les 4 (ou 5) petits commerces ont tous quitté ou fermé leur porte et cela donne donc le feu vert au projet pour aller de l'avant. Ce qui m'intrigue c'est l'activité qu'il y avait à l'arrière. Il semblait y avoir du pieutage juste au bord de la ruelle alors que les édifices actuels sont loin de la ruelle donc j'imagine qu'il y aura expansion de l'immeuble existant vers l'arrière et que le petit stationnement disparaitra. Si c'est le cas tant mieux.

[ScarletCoral]

Je viens de recevoir ce courriel de Prével disant que le promoteur est à la recherche d'un site pour y construire un nouveau projet!

 

 

 

 

Dans la poursuite de la revitalisation de Shaughnessy Village

 

 

 

 

Devant le succès du Seville, Prével est en recherche active pour un nouveau milieu de vie dans Shaughnessy Village. Nous analysons actuellement des sites potentiels et aimerions connaître vos attentes et préférences. Nous vous invitons à répondre à un court sondage qui ne prendra que quelques minutes de votre temps. Vos réponses seront pour nous une grande source d’inspiration et nous aideront à réaliser un projet qui vous ressemble.

 

 

 

 

Pour y accéder, cliquez ici.

 

 

 

 

Merci beaucoup de votre collaboration!

[denpanosekai]

LOL, Prevel's a little confused. 720 != RLB