Park adjacent to city hall to receive $12M facelift
Place Vauquelin, the open square next to city hall that is popular with tourists and as a background for wedding party photos, is getting a major facelift, with a redesigned central fountain, heated granite paving stones to keep it snow free and a return of its massive Christmas tree in the holiday period.
The redesign project will begin next April and is supposed to be completed by December of next year, at a cost of $12 million, of which the Quebec government will kick in $3.5 million.
Popular but rundown and hard to access for those with reduced mobility due to numerous stairs, the new site will be wheelchair and walker friendly. The design calls for raising the overall height of the square by roughly 60 centimetres, or two feet, to give a better view over Champ de Mars square and downtown Montreal to the north, and Old Montreal and Place Jacques-Cartier to the south.
Raised planters and some trees that block views will be removed, and new trees and long benches will be placed along either side to provide resting spots. The fountain will be redesigned to make it more user friendly, with music and water jets.
The cement walkways, installed in the 1980s, are already breaking apart. They will be replaced with granite paving stones, with a system of heated pipes running underneath, supplied with excess heating steam from adjoining city buildings, to keep the snow and ice from gathering.
The rebuilding of Place Vauquelin, linked to Montreal’s 375th birthday celebration in 2017, is the first phase in the city’s plan to redevelop the region surrounding city hall, referred to as the Cité administrative.
The next phase will redevelop the vast Champ de Mars field that lies to the north of city hall, including rebuilding the stone promenade that used to run along its southern flank.