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Fighting over the Faubourg
To his dismay, he was absolutely right. Today, the demolition is almost complete. But for Eide and Peter Fianu, his business partner at Atelier Braq, it's not just about one building. It's about an entire historic district of the city that's about to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch. Located at the entrance to the Lachine Canal, the Faubourg des Récollets is often called the birthplace of Canadian industry. Now, the provincial and municipal governments want to reinvigorate the depressed area by turning it into the Cité du Multimédia: they're offering massive subsidies to high-tech companies which relocate there, and they're building bland, prefab office space in which to house them. "The problem is that governments just can't envision anything on a small scale," says Fianu. "They throw tons of money at huge projects that don't need it." For one thing, Fianu says, high-tech companies are the last ones in need of a subsidy. For another, "they are going to strip the area of its distinct character." "They're right," admits spokesperson Robert Perron of the Société de développement de Montréal, the para-municipal organization which owns all the real estate in the neighbourhood. "The truth is, a few years from now, no one will recognize that area any more." Perron says the cost of renovating the building at 80 Queen was prohibitive; it's cheaper on a square-foot basis to destroy and rebuild. But Fianu sees other, not-so-hidden costs: "The thing they're building has no architectural value whatsoever. The people planning this thing all live in Brossard. They don't live or work here, and they have no interest in what it will be like to live amidst what they build." --Philip Preville
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Three months ago, architect Wade Eide stood outside the industrial building at 80 Queen Street--in the Faubourg des Récollets just west of Old Montreal--and predicted, despondently, "They're gonna tear that building down."