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Old NFB head office in Montreal to get new lease on life with mixed-use development
The former home of the National Film Board on Côte-de-Liesse Road in Montreal's Saint-Laurent borough has sat vacant since 2019, but that could soon change.
The Canada Lands Company unveiled its plans for the site on Thursday, which includes transforming the area —equivalent in size to approximately six football fields — into a mixed-use residential, commercial and cultural hub.
Christopher Sweetnam-Holmes, the Crown corporation's senior director of real estate for Quebec and the Atlantic, said after 30 months of consultations with the public, the project has changed to better answer the community's needs.
Issues raised by the community, Sweetnam-Holmes said, included a need for more housing, stores within walking distance and more parks for kids to play in.
"So first, we're going to insert 700 units of new residential housing, of which half will be non-market housing," Sweetnam-Holmes said.
"So that means social housing, affordable housing, non-profit housing. Then, we're going to repurpose 80 per cent of the buildings on the site, only demolishing 20 per cent."
The plans include room for retail and office space, as well as more green space including a big community park centre in the middle of the housing development.
And to preserve the legacy of the NFB, Sweetnam-Holmes said there will be a place "where art gets made" and people can take part in cultural activities.
Also, the future Côte-de-Liesse REM station, which is slated to open later this year, is less than a kilometre away.
Sweetnam-Holmes is hopeful the project will be transformative.
"I think it's going to bring a lot of new life," Sweetnam-Holmes said. "Because you're going to have all these new people, you're going to have kids, you're going to have people working here, it's going to become like this really dynamic place."
In an interview with CBC, Robert Shearmur, a professor of urban planning at McGill University, struck an optimistic tone when discussing the project.
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He said the Canada Lands Company has a good track record when it comes to listening to communities and coming up with good development ideas and proposals.
He did, however, raise a few areas of concern.
"These are all wonderful ideas if they work," he said, but added they need to be properly scaled.
"There's a very small residential area right next to it. So, for a population of, let's say a couple of thousand people, how much culture, how much community space do you need or would be used?" Shearmur asked.
The same question applies to retail and office space.
Shearmur said he doesn't believe the population size will necessarily warrant having a big grocery store and people will likely have to do their weekly shopping elsewhere.
Which brings us to the issue of cars and where to park them.
In its current form, the site will have 350 indoor parking spots for residential use, 180 indoor and 60 outdoor spots for commercial use.
Shearmur said that might not be enough.
"Unless people happen to work along the REM line, getting to work ... typically requires a car," he said. "I suspect that housing units will be more difficult to sell without at least one space per unit."
Meanwhile, housing advocates worry about how affordable the new units will be.
" The market prices right now are crazy if you look at the prices in Montreal, and even in Quebec," said FRAPRU coordinator Catherine Lussier. "Even if you go below the market, how much below the market?"
Even at 80 per cent, Lussier said tenants risk being priced out.
Meanwhile, Sweetnam-Holmes said its impossible at the moment to know what the rents might look like.
"All that we know is that they will meet the standards of both the City of Montreal and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) in terms of what they define as affordable housing," he said.
According to the CMHC website, "housing is considered affordable if it costs less than 30 per cent of a household's before-tax income."
Later this year, Canada Lands Company will start taking proposals from developers who want to make the vision a reality.
It says the first residents could start moving in in 2028.
