New McCord site unlikely to be next to Place des Festivals
Plante cites need for green space, says métro line doesn’t allow for construction
Mayor Valérie Plante poured cold water Tuesday over whatever remaining hopes the McCord Museum had of erecting its future building next to Place des Festivals.
“The possibility of building a museum there remains very unlikely,” Plante said to reporters during a press briefing on various subjects at city hall.
On Monday, McCord Museum director Suzanne Sauvage said she was shocked to learn the city is eyeing a municipal parking lot next to Place des Festivals — on land bounded by de Maisonneuve Blvd., President-Kennedy Ave., and Bleury and Jeanne-Mance Sts. — for a future park.
The museum, which announced five years ago it was merging with the Stewart Museum, has long cherished hopes of constructing a $150-million building on the cityowned site, which previous mayor Denis Coderre had reserved for that purpose.
But on Tuesday, Plante confirmed that there’s little chance a future museum will ever materialize on the site.
“We absolutely want to find a way to make that area greener because it’s very, very mineral around there with the Place des Festivals, which we love but is covered in concrete, which is why we need a green space,” Plante said.
In addition, studies on the site show that the métro passes directly underneath, so it is not possible to dig building foundations there, she said.
The need for green space in the area is about to become more acute, since the privately owned Jardin Domtar is being sold to a developer with plans to erect a 36-storey condo/ hotel tower.
“We have to recognize that there aren’t many public, municipally owned lots downtown. And with Domtar, it’s very likely that construction will go ahead,” Plante said.
The mayor has said that short of buying the Jardin Domtar, which it can’t afford, the city has no power to block the project.
Plante said she is ready to work with the museum to find another site.
“We’re going to talk with the McCord because it’s a super important institution for the city of Montreal and it’s an impressive museum,” she said.
Sauvage said that it’s not true that the métro tunnel rules out the possibility of building on the site.
“We have done a feasibility study with an architecture firm, which demonstrated that we can build on this site even with the limitations caused by the métro tunnel,” she said in an emailed response to questions from the Montreal Gazette.
“We will meet the mayor next week and listen to what she has to say,” she added.
Sauvage said she first learned of the city’s proposal to transform the parking lot into a park a few months ago, in an article in La Presse on the closing of the Jardin Domtar.
The museum said Monday it had already spent $250,000 on studies for the project and had been hoping that provincial funding would be announced shortly.
The chair of the museum’s board, Monique Jérôme-Forget, first revealed the plans for the new building on Place des Festivals in 2015.