How do you fight urban sprawl? How do you protect small shopkeepers from the monster suburban shopping malls that attract city people thanks to their huge parking lots?
A developer believes the winning recipe lies with bringing into the city the kind of shopping malls that made the suburbs' fortune. Many disagree, and the result is turning into a clash of cultures.
At the heart of the matter is the fact that Montreal has been suffering for years from the doughnut syndrome: High real estate prices, combined with a lack of green spaces and parking facilities, have driven many middle-class families out of the city to nearby suburbs, leaving Montreal with the very poor, the very rich, the newly arrived immigrants and the young, hip urbanites who flock to trendy neighbourhoods such as Le Plateau.
Enter developer Carbonleo with its project for the island of Montreal: a sprawling megamall located at the intersection of two highways (15 and 40), in the Town of Mount Royal, a prosperous area in the northwest of the island. The $1.7-billion investment would stand on 2.5 million square feet of land, offer 8,000 parking spots, generate 15,000 jobs and bring $45-million in taxes for TMR and the City of Montreal. Yet Carbonleo says the traffic around the area would increase by no more than 5 per cent.
The Royalmount would have cinemas, a skating rink, a water park, between 50 and 75 restaurants, two hotels, 1.6 million square feet of retail space and as much office space, a live-entertainment hall with 3,000 seats and so on. The Carbonleo people promise a new kind of shopping mall, something with an "urban feel" where shops would open onto streets or piazzas and pedestrians would be at ease. And, of course, there's a nod to ecology: The roofs would be covered with greenery. Royalmount was partly inspired by Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping Centre and would attract, its developers hope, major upscale retailers.
For La Presse city columnist François Cardinal, it's foolish to try to compete with the suburbs, which will always be able to offer more space and newer developments. Royalmount would compete with the city's brand new Quartier des spectacles – an entertainment district – and siphon the clientele from the main downtown shopping street, rue Ste-Catherine, which will soon be undergoing a massive overhaul.
The left-leaning municipal opposition party, Projet Montréal, is squarely against Royalmount: "We must choose between organic development or the American way of life. This project will be dumped by helicopter into a ghetto deprived of links with the surrounding districts," Projet Montréal leader Luc Ferrandez says. Le Devoir's Jean-François Nadeau complained that it will encourage the plague of overconsumption.
But Alain Dubuc, a senior columnist for La Presse, attributes the negative reactions to the chronic reflex of saying "no" to any new development. "It's unbelievable that in a city that stagnates economically, people would reject a project worth more than $1-billion that, for once, comes without state subsidies and public financing. It's not the small shops that will lose their clientele to Royalmount, but similar large suburban shopping malls. Instead of crossing a bridge to go shopping, people will spend their money on the island of Montreal."
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre hasn't yet made up his mind. He's worried about the impact the project would have on the city. If Carbonleo gets the green light, the megamall would open in 2021.
Lysiane Gagnon