New project expected for site of old Spectrum
The site where the Spectrum theatre once stood has been empty for a decade, a phantom place for those who recall the downtown corner’s storied past and a reminder that promises of an impending replacement project remain unfulfilled.
Now it turns out that discussions on what to do with the site — at Ste-Catherine St. W. and Bleury St. — started up once again last month, when developer Canderel backed out of building a $150-million office complex that had been planned since 2013.
A new project proposal may be announced soon, however, says the site’s owner, the Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ.
Communications director Josée Lagacé said last week that the real estate investment arm of the FTQ union is in talks with different developers to find a new partner to build a mixed-use project that, while still not fully defined, would incorporate housing, commercial space and possibly offices.
“There are announcements that will come very soon — announcements that will include, of course, a real estate developer and a draft project,” she said. “So it’s coming soon.”
Fond immobilier de solidarité FTQ, which bought the site in 2011, agreed with Canderel to end their partnership in the office complex project in September, Lagacé added.
“Canderel wished to no longer develop this project for reasons that are their own,” she said.
There were several potential projects for the land while Canderel was a partner, she added, but none elicited enough interest from potential occupants to move ahead.
Canderel officials declined to answer questions last week.
Fond immobilier de solidarité FTQ buys land for development and always partners with a builder, Lagacé said.
The Spectrum met an incongruous end given that it was a cultural marker in an area that city officials were busy shaping into the Quartier des spectacles entertainment hub.
The building first served as the Alouette Theatre after it went up in 1952, and later as Club Montreal. It was a neighbourhood cornerstone as the Spectrum concert hall from 1982 to 2007, offering a 1,200-seat venue that showcased local and international acts on the rise, as well as performances by legends who preferred an intimate setting.
In 2008, the Ville-Marie borough issued a permit to its owner, SIDEV Inc., to demolish the concert hall and five neighbouring buildings to make way for a four-storey commercial and office project.
A coalition to save the Spectrum gathered 15,000 signatures on a petition demanding the city stop the demolition. But then-mayor Gérald Tremblay declared the Spectrum’s fate was a private business matter.
The demolition committee asked SIDEV to commemorate the history of the area in some manner.
However, the company ’s project never materialized, and the vacant site was sold in 2011 to a numbered company that is in turn owned by a company controlled by the Fonds immobilier de solidarité FTQ.
In 2013, the borough approved the office complex proposed by the Fonds and Canderel and authorized the demolition of two more buildings on Jeanne-Mance St.
The $150-million Tours du Quartier des spectacles was to consist of two towers of 13 and 30 storeys with stores, restaurants, 96,600 square metres of office space and 286 parking spots.
The borough had required SIDEV to provide a $1.25-million guarantee until it built the replacement project when the borough authorized demolition in 2008, borough spokesperson Anik de Repentigny said.
The guarantee was increased to $1.75 million and extended in 2012, she added. It expired last December.
Instead of renewing the obligation to finish the project, the borough council voted to impose an obligation to build up to at least the first floor.
The developer will be released of the guarantee once the obligation is met, de Repentigny said.
With a new project in the offing, that is probably a long way off.
However, Lagacé said it’s “normal in real estate that it takes several years to develop a project.” That’s especially true in Quartier des spectacles, she said, which is an “exceptional site in the heart of Montreal.”