Lachine Canal ‘building is going to be so damn close’
Neighbours and activists wary of likely AirBnB headquarters
A proposed new building expected to house Airbnb’s new Montreal headquarters is making waves on the Lachine Canal, raising concerns of neighbours and heritage activists about an area undergoing a building boom.
People who live next door in the Corticelli Lofts, one of the first 19th-century factories near the canal to be turned into condos, say the planned six-storey complex encroaches on their views and is too close to their residences.
“The thing that they’re building is going to be so damn close, the people on the east side of our building are going to have office workers looking directly into their apartments,” said John Gutpell, a board member at the Corticelli.
The Sud- Ouest borough delayed a vote on a resolution related to the new six-storey building last week after asking the developer, Groupe Mach, to shift the location of the building.
On Friday, a spokesperson for the company told the Montreal Gazette that a revised plan, with the building set farther back from the Corticelli, is in the works.
The Corticelli is on St-Patrick St. in Pointe-St.-Charles, just east of des Seigneurs St.
The new building has been in the planning stage for almost a decade. SEE CANAL ON A3
The plan was revised in 2012, though neighbours say they only saw the changes in recent months.
Compared to plans shown at a public meeting in 2010, the building was moved at least seven metres closer to the Corticelli, according to Corticelli residents.
At its closest point, the neighbours say a portion of the new building will now be six metres from the Corticelli. In meetings with Corticelli residents, Groupe Mach has contended that it will actually be almost 10 metres away.
Neighbours are also concerned about how close the new building will be to seven maple trees that the city is obliging the developer to save.
“We’re talking to Groupe Mach to try to get some concessions that the neighbours wanted,” said city councillor Craig Sauvé.
The borough asked the company to modify the design so the building is not as close to the Corticelli or to the maple trees.
Eric Barbeau, a Groupe Mach spokesperson, said the company “wants to be a good neighbour” and will move the building away from the Corticelli and the trees. He could not say how far the building will be shifted, noting new plans will be submitted to the borough by May 31.
Sauvé said the borough can’t force the company to move the building because “they have full rights to go ahead and build due to previous (borough) votes” in 2010 and 2012.
Even if the updated plan doesn’t satisfy neighbours, the borough can only delay the project at this stage, he said. It cannot stop the construction.
A Sud-Ouest bylaw forbids erecting a single building on multiple lots. The developer wants to construct the new building on two lots between St-Patrick and des Seigneurs. On one lot sits a nondescript empty factory to be demolished; the other features a parking lot.
The developer has asked the borough to pass a resolution — a bylaw derogation — allowing it to proceed.
Elected officials were scheduled to vote on that resolution May 14 but put it on hold due to negotiations with Groupe Mach. The next borough council meeting is June 11.
If the developer and the borough can’t come to an agreement, the developer could file a request with the Quebec government to combine the two lots, Sauvé said. That process can take several months, delaying the start of construction. It’s a given that Quebec would approve the change.
The new building will be about two metres higher than the Corticelli and will feature about 134 underground parking spots, according to Groupe Mach plans given to Corticelli residents.
Residents of the Corticelli had urged the borough to send the project back to the drawing board.
They argued the planned structure is larger and closer to neighbours than the building approved in the past by the borough.
The Corticelli residents also note that a 2012 borough decision ordered that the new building location should be inspired by the neighbouring Redpath Lofts, another former industrial building. If that rule was followed, the new building would have to be shifted several metres away from the canal, the neighbours say.
But Sauvé said the borough has closely reviewed Groupe Mach plans and the company has the right to construct the building as proposed.
Heritage activists are also raising concerns.
Dinu Bumbaru, policy director at Heritage Montreal, said he is uneasy about the building ’s impact on the landscape of a historic part of the city.
The building will face the Lachine Canal’s St. Gabriel Locks, which help explain the history of Montreal, he noted.
Built early in the 19th century, the canal made Montreal one of the main ports of entry to North America and helped spark an industrial building boom. The canal, used to transport goods for almost 150 years, became obsolete when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959.
“This is a rather unique and iconic part of Montreal,” Bumbaru said. “It’s not just water flowing in the middle and then real estate on the side. It has a personality.”
He said he looked at plans for the new glass and brick office building “and I say, is this the best we can come up with?”
Bumbaru said the large building may “close the space and visual landscape around these iconic locks” by “bringing a wall so close to the canal.”
The red-bricked Corticelli building, completed in 1884, once housed the Belding-Corticelli silk manufacturing factory, at one point employing hundreds of people producing more than 2,000 types of thread. The building was a factory until 1982 and was converted to open-concept, high-ceiling condos in the late 1980s.
One side of the Corticelli is still graced by a water channel that once connected to the building ’s power wheels and was later used to transport raw materials to the factory.
“We have so few of these historic waterways in Montreal that special care should be given to keeping them present and visible in the city fabric,” Bumbaru said of the channel.
Drawings that Groupe Mach has shown neighbours indicate the new building will cross over only part of the channel, and the section above the channel will be elevated — about five metres above ground level.
Bumbaru praised this part of the design, saying it will provide a pleasant experience for those who want to visit the channel, which is connected to the Lachine Canal via the Bassin des Prêtres, which runs along part of the Redpath building.
“You can see from the drawing that the section of the building over the (channel) is narrower than the whole project so there will be some sky,” he said.
Groupe Mach has told residents it will rebuild the channel walls, parts of which are crumbling.
Groupe Mach officials have told neighbours that Airbnb, an accommodation-sharing service, will be the new building’s main tenant, Gutpell said. Airbnb and its Luxury Retreats subsidiary are on a hiring spree in Montreal, with 22 job openings.
Asked whether Airbnb will be moving into the building, Sauvé said “that’s what we’ve been led to believe.”
Groupe Mach, for its part, said it could not reveal the name of its tenant.
Sauvé said several hundred people are expected to work in the new building. The arrival of more workers in the area is good news, he added: “Having jobs in the city fights urban sprawl and it’s good for local commercial streets as well.”
The Lachine Canal has changed considerably since he moved into the Corticelli 25 years ago, Gutpell said. At the time, few buildings were over four storeys, many old factories stood empty and few people lived or worked in the area.
Many condo towers have gone up since, especially across the canal in Griffintown, where construction cranes fill the skyline.
“When you look at Griffintown, there are these 15-to-20-storey condo towers going up,” Gutpell said. “The city has gone crazy, with no regard for density. The condo buildings are jammed in like boxes of cereal on a shelf.
“It’s really the opening of the canal that spurred things,” he added, referring to the refurbishment of the waterway and its opening to recreational boating in 2002.
“It brought restaurants down here and all kinds of things. In many ways, it’s a positive thing but I just think it’s gone a bit too far.”
Thirty-two years ago, it was the imminent arrival of Corticelli and Redpath condo dwellers that made waves. In 1986, about 150 PointeSt.-Charles residents took to the streets to complain that the new residences would drive up rents in buildings nearby and displace longtime residents.
“We built this community and brought up our children here and now we’re being pushed out because never in a million years could we afford to live in these fancy places,” one of the protesters told the Montreal Gazette at the time.