by PATRICK LEJTENYI

The Grover factory, it would seem, will be saved. That joyous news was announced last week when the city, province and the residents, most of whom are artists, small businesses and artisans, unveiled a unique partnership to buy the building from Marvyn Grover, its current owner, who was until recently considering selling it to a condominium developer.

In the short term, the proposed agreement—it has yet to be ratified at a special general meeting next Tuesday, May 30—will ensure the tenants won’t have to move, which is already considered by them a victory. Under the new arrangement, artists will be charged roughly $9 per square foot in rent, while other tenants, those based in “creative” industries like architecture, multimedia production, film, TV, graphics, design and so on, will not exceed $15 per square foot. An 800-square-foot artists’ studio, therefore, would be a bargain at $600 a month. An estimated 61 per cent of the spaces available will be reserved as artists’ studios, and the remaining 39 per cent will go to industrial lofts and offices.

In the long term, the effects could ripple throughout the city. Marie-Anne Marchand, the coordinator for the Coalition Sauvons l’usine, a Grover residents’ group, says the model created to save this particular artists’ colony could be applied to other endangered locales around Montreal.

“This doesn’t just affect us,” she says. “It affects the whole city.” (Not to mention Marchand’s first passion as a sculptor. Since she started getting involved in this whole business, she says she hasn’t had time to work on her art. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to do much in the future either.)

The agreement calls for the Société de développement Angus, the Société de développement de Montréal and the borough of Ville-Marie to invest in the factory and use it as a local economic development vehicle. Ville-Marie borough mayor Benoît Labonté reportedly “fell in love” with the factory, located at Parthenais and Ontario, while electioneering last fall. “The fact that he’s head of cultural affairs on the city’s executive committee helped” the factory’s case as well, says Marchand.

It won’t be cheap. Marchand says the building can be bought for around $4-million, but renovations and bringing the building’s structural integrity up to established norms can cost an extra $4.4-million. Along with other costs, the project’s total bill will hover in the $9-million range.

But among all the faceless alphabet soup of agencies, government departments, non-profit corporations and bureaucracies involved, one stands out, and that’s Espaces créatifs Montréal, an extension of the Coalition Sauvons l’usine. Its mandate will be to offer to develop and protect creative spaces with a decidedly cultural bent, says Marchand. Government agencies like Heritage Canada, Canada Economic Development and the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications will be approached to help foot the tab.

Marchand says she doesn’t know which locales Espaces créatifs will look at post-Grover just yet. “We’ll start with this project,” she says. “It’s big enough for now.”