Demolition of Pioneer bar underway in Pointe-claire
The old Pioneer bar is slowly coming down, piece by piece.
Parts of the exterior — the fire escapes, upper chimney and entranceways — are being removed as a four-week demolition process chips away at 120 years of history in the heart of the Pointe-claire Village.
The Pioneer has been closed since July 21 of 2018. Its final night of revelry drew hundreds of patrons for one final drink (until the place ran dry around midnight) and a swig of nostalgia for a place where generations of young West Island adults recall meeting up with friends for a beer or listening to live music. For a spell before it closed, the Pioneer was showing its age, both inside and out. The stucco exterior had faded to a pale yellow and few remnants of its origins as a suburban hotel, first as the Charlebois in 1901, and later the Pointe-claire Hotel, were visible to passersby. The western-themed wooden interior also looked tired.
Still, its loss comes as a blow to local heritage advocates who fought to save it from being razed and replaced by luxury condos — which they say are too big and grand to occupy the Lakeshore Rd. location.
For Tracy Mcbean, who joined a grassroots citizens' group that fought to prevent its demolition, the Pioneer was more than “just a bar.”
“It's been a gathering spot for the community for over a century. It's a piece of the landscape, a piece of history, a piece of the community. It's not a derelict bar,” she said. “So many people have memories there. That's what you're taking away: peoples' memories.”
But not all Pointe-claire residents will lament the Pioneer's demise. Many who once frequented the Pio watched it become a rundown watering hole that no longer drew much of a crowd.
“It is not a historic building and with doing no repairs it fell into disarray and became an eyesore,” said Tom Litchfield, a local resident for 35 years. “It was time to go.”
Litchfield noticed the place went downhill after the bar changed from Clyde's (1995-2011) back to the Pioneer.
“The bathrooms were disgusting. Things were broken and never fixed. We would go and watch some football games and the TV was broken for weeks and never fixed.”
Tim Thomas, who owns an antique shop in the village, misses meeting up with friends at the Pioneer. He fears the luxury condo development will lead to gentrification.
“The village is going to lose its charm,” he said. “We're going to become upscale like Greene Ave. in Westmount or Laurier Ave. in Montreal.
For Andrew Swidzinski, vice-president of the Pointe-claire Heritage Preservation Society, the Pioneer's demolition signals the end of the Pointe-claire Village in its present and past form.
“It's a very sad day for the Pointe-claire Village,” he said. “We're losing a place that's been a meeting place for generations of Pointe-claire residents and was part of the village core. And we're going to replace with a building that clearly doesn't belong there, and a construction project that is going to hurt the neighbouring businesses at the worst possible time.”
Swidzinski said the Pioneer demolition and condo development never would have happened without the support of the city and Mayor John Belvedere.
“This is his single biggest signature move as mayor. Belvedere invested his own political capital behind this project more than anything else. It's a project — unlike Walton, Fairview or Brivia — he made possible by selling the parking lot to the developer, and selling it at a price, that in our view, was worth considerably less than it is actually worth.”
As for the 14 luxury condos and four commercial spaces to be built on the site by developer Greg Koegl, Swidzinski said: “It will change the look of the village in a way I think it will resemble more of what we're used to seeing in condo-heavy neighbourhoods like Laval and Lasalle, versus what we're used to seeing in PointeClaire.”
Koegl declined to comment on the demolition, but previously has stated the Pioneer is not a heritage building by government designation. Condo construction is to be completed by the fall of 2021.