Neighbours are also concerned the high-rises that are part of the $2.2-billion mixed-use project will block sunlight and “crush us.”
Place Versailles, a landmark in east-end Montreal and at one time a modern retail beacon, is preparing for retirement after 60 years of service.
And while reaction to the $2.2-billion mixed-use redevelopment project that was unveiled by the shopping centre’s owners this month is generally positive, there are concerns about its proposed building heights and a low proportion of affordable and social housing.
The plan for the nearly 170,000-square-metre property that spreads half a kilometre north from Sherbrooke St. E. at Highway 25 in Mercier—Hochelaga-Maisonneuve borough calls for construction of 5,202 housing units across 30 to 40 new buildings — including one 25-storey and one 22-storey high-rise — commercial space, an elementary school, hotel, office space, community centre, three public parks and parking. Stores, some of which would be large surface, would occupy the ground floor of several buildings, while green space would cover 10 per cent of the site’s surface area.
“Retail continues to reinvent itself, especially since the pandemic,” Place Versailles spokesperson Kevin Robinson said in an email.
“Consumers are changing their purchasing habits, particularly turning to online purchasing. Shopping-centre spaces must therefore be rethought to meet the needs for housing, greening and community services. The commercial vocation will, however, remain important.”
City council last week voted to send the Place Versailles project for public consultation at the Office de consultation publique de Montréal this fall.
The opposition at city hall says the addition of 5,000 units and the greening of a giant heat island are “commendable,” but contends the administration of Mayor Valérie Plante should have negotiated for more social and affordable housing in exchange for agreeing to triple the permitted height on the site to 25 storeys from the current zoning maximum of eight storeys.
The plan calls for 42 of the 5,202 new units — less than one per cent — to be affordable housing and for 471 units, or nine per cent, to be non-profit community housing.
“The Place Versailles project, as presented, demonstrates a flagrant lack of leadership on the part of the administration in the wake of the affordability crisis across the city of Montreal,” said Julien Hénault-Ratelle, a city councillor in the borough and opposition Ensemble Montréal party’s critic on housing and real estate matters. Among the positive features, he noted the project includes housing for seniors and added density around the métro Green line’s Radisson station.
The borough’s planning advisory committee approved the project in April, but recommended tweaks, including “increased efforts in affordable and social housing.”
Together, the non-market social and affordable housing would make up just under 10 per cent of the 5,202 units, Hénault-Ratelle said. Yet Montreal’s new urban and mobility plan, released by the Plante administration just last week, sets a target of 20 per cent of all housing in Montreal to be non-market social and community housing by 2050.
“So the development proposed for Place Versailles, which is one of the largest projects the east end of Montreal will see in the coming years and even decades, doesn’t respect the orientations of the new urban and mobility plan,” he said.
For residents, the redevelopment proposal has its appeal. However, the 25-storey tower is planned along the north edge of the property, across the street from six-storey condo buildings.
“The project has nice qualities,” said Denis Perras, who has lived in one of the condos on Pierre-Corneille St., across the street from the mall’s vast parking lot, for 35 years.
“But what we’re very much against is a 25-storey tower directly in front of us. It’ll block light and crush us. It’ll be a wall in our faces. It’s much too high.”
Along Trianon St., on the west side of the mall, the project calls for low-rise buildings to go up across from a row of bungalows, Perras noted.
“But it’s like they forgot there were neighbours on Pierre-Corneille who are affected,” he said of his neighbours.
“Everyone has the same concern.”
The tower should be set well back from Pierre-Corneille, or along Sherbrooke, Perras said. One of the planned parks should instead border Pierre-Corneille, he said.
However, Robinson said the 25-storey structure is planned as a “slender tower, which will make the ground more green. It is a thinner tower that will not block the view of several neighbours or reduce sunlight.”
The affordable and social housing units that will be built on-site “will be located in quality locations near the parks,” Robinson added.
Mercier—Hochelaga—Maisonneuve borough mayor Pierre Lessard-Blais defended the project at the council meeting this week, and contended that the point of this fall’s consultation is to address concerns, like the social and affordable housing components.
“We have an interesting project that could be improved,” Lessard-Blais said. But overall, the project will green what is currently a heat island that’s the size of three Olympic stadiums and add over 5,000 residences connected to the métro system, he said. The mall owners have been working with the borough for three years and held an initial public consultation in 2021, Lessard-Blais added.
Place Versailles’ owners are William Gregory and Richard Dubrovsky, descendants of the original owners who opened the mall in 1963 with 30 stores and a construction price tag of $10 million.
In those days, shopping malls were open-air, composed of a series of connected shops accessed from outside and serviced by a large outdoor parking lot. Place Versailles, which has been called Montreal’s first indoor mall, was designed for comfort by offering shoppers an enclosed space with winter heating and summer air conditioning, according to its architects. The guest list for the opening festivities in 1963 included hockey star Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion and singer Michel Louvain.
In the meantime, Galéries d’Anjou was built a kilometre and a half away, expanded in the 1970s, renovated in the 1990s and expanded again a decade ago.
The first phase of the Place Versailles redevelopment is planned to start in three or four years. The owners say the project would be spread over 10 to 15 years. And while the shopping centre would be gradually demolished, that would start only in five to seven years.
In council chambers, Lessard-Blais countered that the opposition isn’t being constructive in its criticism.
“It’s because we thought outside the box,” Plante said of creating the bylaw.
“But we’ll never neglect the fact that we need a mix of housing offer so everyone in Montreal can be housed.”