St-Lazare looks to dramatically redesign its commercial centre
The commercial centre of St-Lazare could change dramatically in the next decade as the town begins to draft plans for a new town square.
The centre of St-Lazare could change dramatically within the next decade, as the town begins a new project to revitalize and redesign the downtown commercial area.
“This is something that’s been talked about for years in St-Lazare, but it has never really been completed,” St-Lazare Mayor Robert Grimaudo said.
“You want people to come park their cars, their bicycles or their horses and use our services, go to the bakery, go to the butcher or have a coffee,” the mayor said.
The redevelopment project will be centred around a new town square near Poirier St., just north of Ste-Angelique Rd., where the town has already signed expropriation agreements with the owners of four homes. Two of the homes are already unoccupied, and all four will be demolished. Those four expropriations will cost about $1 million, Grimaudo said.
Grimaudo said he envisioned a wide town square near that intersection, which would open up onto Bédard Park. Draft plans include an open area with benches and possibly a fountain, but no final decisions have been made yet.
The town also plans to redevelop several blocks of Ste-Angelique Rd. near Bédard Ave., Grimaudo said. Details of those plans are still being discussed, but Grimaudo said that the town hopes to widen the road, while maintaining the sidewalk and bike path.
Widening the street and sidewalks should help to encourage pedestrian traffic, he said.
To do that, the town will need to remove telephone poles and bury electrical cables on those blocks, Grimau- do explained. If council approves the budget for the project, work could start as early as next spring, he said.
The centre of St-Lazare has remained mostly unchanged “forever,” Grimaudo said. He predicted that this first major redesign could take as long as two council mandates, or eight years, to complete.
Previous councils have discussed similar downtown revitalization projects and some draft plans already exist, but no major changes have yet been made to the town’s centre.
The project will likely cost “millions,” but an exact estimate will not be available until more detailed plans are drawn up.
“But it’s for everybody. It’s for the whole town ... But more than anything, it’s for the merchants,” Grimaudo said.
“You want people to come into the village. It’s important to keep the local economy vibrant,” he added.
It’s easy for residents to shop in large stores in nearby towns like Vaudreuil-Dorion, but Grimaudo said he hoped that the proposed town square and focus on pedestrian traffic would encourage people to come to the centre of town and stay for a longer period of time.
Across the road from one of the Poirier St. houses that will soon be expropriated, Pizza Roma owner Costa Soussaris said he was optimistic about the proposed changes to the area.
He suggested that the town build a large square — “something like they have in Europe,” he said — with room for a small covered area where musicians and artists could put on shows
and merchants could sell goods during the summer.
“Whatever they put there, it’ll be good for me, because I’ll be at the centre of everything,” he said.
More traffic — pedestrian or otherwise — in the area would help to improve business, said Soussaris, who has owned the restaurant for 16 years.
The town has already held public consultations on the project and intends to hold more — possibly as often as every six months — as the process continues, Grimaudo said.