Project will expand Dorchester Square
Delayed renovation set to expand area and introduce other improvements
Dorchester Square in downtown Montreal is about to get bigger.
Work started Tuesday on a longdelayed, $8.9-million renovation that will expand the public space, adding lawned areas, a water fountain and pedestrian bridges.
The focus is on the northern tip of the square. The rest of the square was refurbished in 2010.
As part of the project, the square will be extended over two of the five lanes of traffic on Dorchester Square St., which sits between the square and the Dominion Square Building and connects Peel and Metcalfe Sts.
Some of the new public space will be grassed over, and other parts will be covered in granite paving stones, according to the city ’s public tender document. Two wood and steel footbridges will connect the current part of the square with the new section.
A cast-iron Victorian-style water fountain with three basins is to be installed in the new area. Images in the city document indicate the fountain will be more than 10 metres tall.
A life-size, aluminum statue of a woodpecker with a prominent red crest will be fastened to the side of the fountain, about halfway up.
The new section of the square was designed by landscape architects at Claude Cormier and Associates.
In a presentation about the project, the company described the planned fountain as “a timeless water feature typical of Montreal’s mid-nineteenth-century ‘belle-époque’ period.”
The company noted that the square’s northern edge was cut off when accesses to an underground parking garage were built and Dorchester Square St. was widened.
The original diagonal Victorian paths radiating from the centre of the square were sliced by two ramps leading to the parking.
“Two arched pedestrian bridges (will) restore these axes without interrupting traffic flows, effectively positioning the park thresholds closer to Ste-Catherine St. to plug into large volumes of pedestrians that circulate on this emblematic commercial street,” the landscape architects said.
Other improvements are also in the works.
Workers will restore a vespasienne in the square. Built in 1931, the octagonal building was originally a public washroom. New lighting and street furniture will also be installed. And the roof slab of the underground parking will be waterproofed.
The city says the project is to be completed in November.
Work on the northern section of the square was initially expected to be completed in 2011.