Questions remain about sale
City consultant hired to scout buildings enlisted middleman to broker deal
Claude Baillargeon and Michel Servant worked together to arrange the city of Montreal’s purchase of an office building at 6767 Côte des Neiges Rd. to house a new municipal library. In 2000, the city paid $3.7 million for the building, double its property valuation and nearly quadruple the price the seller had paid for it less than two years earlier.
The city’s economic and urban development department hired Claude Baillargeon as a consultant in April 2000, paying him $30,000 to “negotiate agreements in the nature of real estate,” an internal civil service report says. Baillargeon was a realestate broker, whom Fortier says he became acquainted with around the time of his 1998 election, who scouted buildings for the library project. (Bourque’s office would later hire him as a special adviser on real estate paying him $60,000 between February and December 2001.)
Baillargeon enlisted Servant’s real-estate company, Groupe Summa Inc., to act as a front for the city to negotiate a price with the owner of 6767 Côte des Neiges and then cede his offer to the city, The Gazette reported in the fall of 2000.
Baillargeon today defends the deal, and says he brought in Servant to camouflage the city’s interest in buying the property to prevent gouging by the seller.
“I called someone I knew who was a realtor and I spoke to him about it,” Baillargeon said of Servant, who said he’s worked in real estate since 1979. “He presented a project and the city accepted it.”
An internal civil service report in April 2000 shows the city’s buildings department paid Groupe Summa $28,756 for services provided in the 6767 Côte des Neiges purchase.
In 2001, Gérald Tremblay, then a candidate for mayor running against Bourque, questioned the 6767 Côte des Neiges purchase, citing the fees paid to Baillargeon and Groupe Summa, as well as a $185,477 commission Groupe Summa agreed to pay a separate real-estate broker, a press release issued by Tremblay’s party said at the time.
Servant says the price was justified because the previous owner had snatched up the building at a low price. Baillargeon and Servant maintain the city paid a reasonable price and met the city’s needs.
“It remains a nice deal,” Servant says. The sale was relatively quick, he concedes. “Normally, it takes one to two years when the city buys a building. In this case, it was very quick.”