Mud slung both ways in gentrification battle
Developer objects to being painted as the villain, says `the world has changed'
In one corner, you have a community up in arms that mom-and-pop businesses on St-viateur St. are being forced out by exorbitant rent increases. In the other corner is one of the city's leading real-estate developers that owns several buildings on the fabled Mile End artery and insists his group is just trying to make a living in a difficult business environment.
There's a lot of mud being slung in both directions and given that it's 2021, a lot of it is taking place on social media. For example, there is a Facebook page called Mile End Ensemble and it bills itself as: “The citizens of the Mile End organizing against Shiller Lavy.”
It all started last week when word leaked that venerable used bookstore S.W. Welch, which has been on St-viateur St. for 15 years, looks likely to close because its landlord, Shiller Lavy Realties, is demanding a major rent increase.
“Looking at Shiller Lavy on St-viateur St., they really have not integrated into the neighbourhood culture,” said Richard Ryan, the Projet Montréal councillor for Mile End.
Ryan has lived in the `hood for 35 years and currently lives just around the corner from the S.W. Welch bookstore.
“They haven't bothered to look at what people here need, at what they want,” Ryan said. “They bring Lululemon to St-viateur St . ... I don't have anything against Lululemon. It's a nice boutique. But should a little commercial street like St-viateur have a store like that? We're losing a bookstore. They closed Le Cagibi, that was very well integrated into the community and was making a profit. They (might) close the bookstore and then they say no one reads books. Hey whoa! We saw a big increase in book sales during the pandemic. And forget the pandemic. The business sells books and they're able to survive.
“(Shiller Lavy) just want to make more and more money and maybe the space will stay vacant for two or three years, which is what happened with the Cagibi space,” Ryan continued. “But they don't care because they own buildings all over the place. So they can survive. How do you think we see that on St-viateur St? These businesses are closing not because they're not working, but because they have a landlord who is raising the rent in unreasonable fashion. They just put it as part of their losses while we're losing the identity of the street. Before Shiller Lavy arrived the street was doing just fine. There was no problem. Then I read him saying that St-viateur became trendy because of them. No way. It's the opposite.”
In an article published in the
Gazette Monday, Shiller Lavy co-owner Danny Lavy said: “You have to ask yourself: Does anybody buy books today?”
Told of Ryan's comments, Lavy points to the local businesses in his buildings on St-viateur, including Bishop & Bagg Pub, taco restaurant La Catrina, and Falafel Yoni.
“Who is he? He's going to decide where Lululemon is going to go?” Lavy asked about Ryan. “He wants to make it against the law for Lululemon to open up on St-viateur? Does he decide where a retailer should open or close? ... He thinks that an antique bookstore that has no business online (is the best business)? ... (The) neighbourhood ... is completely different today than it was 30 years ago, because Ubisoft and all of the IT companies that moved on Casgrain Ave., they're all young cool people . ... Does he not see all of this? I'm so sad for Montreal. Honestly. I'm in Florida and I can tell you I'm so sad for Montreal.
He doesn't understand a damn thing. (It's) ignorance at its best.”
Lavy said he has received threatening phone calls from Mile End residents and feels it's unfair that his company is being painted as the villain.
“I love Montreal, I really, really do,” Lavy said. “I'm just disappointed in the people ... what (Ryan) doesn't understand is I didn't put Ubisoft there. They rented that space. I didn't decide for Lululemon to be there. They decided to be there. They like the customers who work at Ubisoft and all of the companies on Casgrain. The neighbourhood changed in the last 15 years despite the fact that he'd like to leave it the same . ... I think he should shut down Ubisoft and let them go back to France ... and let the people in Quebec have no jobs. And let them spend the day sitting in a bookstore reading . ... That's his mentality. The world has changed. How is that my fault?”
There are neighbourhoods all over the world, in New York City, in London, in Paris, that have been gentrified in similar fashion to Mile End. The artists arrive and the real-estate developers follow.
Ryan is aware of that. He notes that one study suggested there were more artists per capita in Mile End than any neighbourhood in Canada. But things are changing, a trend that intensified when Allied began buying up warehouse buildings at high prices on Gaspé Ave. near St-viateur.
“Look, Shiller Lavy is just doing their job,” Ryan said. “But in the middle of a pandemic, how about a little effort given how much money you've made in the neighbourhood? They don't even know what neighbourhood they're in. They just want to make as much money as quickly as possible.”
These businesses are closing … because they have a landlord who is raising the rent in unreasonable fashion.