Former funeral home could soon get new life
After attempt at eatery failed, building is now back on market
The old Urgel Bourgie funeral home in Pointe-Claire Village is back on the market, after one owner’s failed attempt to turn it into a restaurant and another owner’s decision to pull out of the village.
The two-storey commercial building at 281 Lakeshore Blvd. has been listed for $1.5 million with the Sutton Group.
It is being sold by Falcon International, a Dorval-based freight-forwarding company, which bought the building in 2009 and has been using it as office space.
The company paid $775,000 for the property when it bought it from John Nielsen, a Beaconsfield man who had tried unsuccessfully for several years to turn the old building into a restaurant.
Nielsen ran into trouble with Pointe-Claire city officials after he carried out major renovations of the building, including adding a main-floor extension to the sidewalk and a secondfloor terrasse.
In an interview with The Gazette in 2011, Nielsen said he was fed up with trying to work with the city of Pointe-Claire and that he sold the building out of frustration.
He said he needed to recoup some of his losses.
Since then, village merchants and some citizens have complained to city officials that Falcon’s use of the building as office space has sucked the life out of the village mainstreet and created a dead zone.
They point to how the company has papered all of the building’s windows and barred the mainstreet storefront.
“Everyone would like to see that property look more alive,” said Claude Cousineau, who was elected in November as councillor for Pointe-Claire District 1, the ward in which the village is located.
“It’s potentially very good timing for a new buyer,” Cousineau said.
Last November, he said, the city held a public consultation that invited more than 100 Pointe-Claire stakeholders, including citizens, to a one-day brainstorming session on what is wrong with Pointe-Claire Village.
Next month, he said, the private consulting firm that was hired for the village diagnosis will deliver its report, including recommendations, to help revive the village mainstreet.