Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot to spend $4M on new park space
Will feature basketball and tennis courts, water games, open-air theatre
The burgeoning town of Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot is investing about $4 million in the development of a multi-use park that will eventually feature basketball and tennis courts, a skateboard run, water games and an open-air theatre.
Parc des Éperviers is located near Riverlaine St. and Virginie-Roy Blvd., and is in a significant residential sector that was developed over the past decade, Mayor Danie Deschênes said, adding that about 40 per cent of the town’s current population lives within its vicinity.
“This will be the main park which is to be built in this area,” the mayor said. “It is a major project.
“About 85 per cent of the installations will be in place before the end of the summer,” she added.
Council recently granted a $3.5-million contract to Jacques Theoret Construction Inc., one of six firms that bid on the main phase of the project to develop the 480,000-square-foot park. Last November, a $283,000 contract was awarded to an urban planning firm to draw up final specifications and prepare tender documents for this second phase of the project.
“There is a huge area where we are going to have sports, like tennis, basketball and soccer,” Deschênes said. “There will also be an area for younger families, with water games and different games that children can play for (newborns) to 18 months and from (ages) two to five. The park is really prepared toward families, which is really 90 per cent of the area. It’s going to be great.”
As well, the new park will be used by the town’s summer camps and to host festivals, the mayor said. A park chalet will be built this summer, and two shelters and a picnic area will be set up.
The first phase of the park development, work that was carried out last year, consisted of setting up a sledding hill that was visited regularly this past winter, installing a soccer pitch with lighting that is now ready, and preparing four rainwater retention basins. One of these basins will form a lake that can be used for ice skating during the winter, the mayor said.
The third and final phase, which will start in the spring of 2016, will consist mostly of landscaping, adding signage and installing outdoor training equipment geared more toward adults.
While the growing town aims to maintain its agricultural heritage, the Parc des Éperviers project meets the needs of its 10,700 residents, Deschênes said, adding she anticipates the population will settle in the range of 15,000 people in the next few years and be similar in size to nearby Pincourt.
“It has grown a lot in the past 15 years, but now it’s slowing down a bit. We have about 70 per cent of the land that is agricultural and we want to keep that,” she said. “Some areas are still being built, but it won’t grow that much anymore.”
Notre-Dame-de-l’Île-Perrot’s population grew steadily over the past two decades, from about 5,200 in 1992 to 8,500 in 2001, and to 10,600 as of the 2011 census.