On May 6, the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal held the fourteenth edition of its Major Metropolitan Projects Strategic Forum. The event, which had been postponed a week earlier due to a power failure, brought together over 600 business leaders at the Palais des Congrès. Every year, this forum is an opportunity to discuss the role of major real estate projects in the city’s vitality and to reflect on the transformation of its strategic sectors.
The Mayor of Montréal and President of the Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal, Valérie Plante, used her closing speech to thank the developers and investors who, through their projects, fuel the city’s momentum.
6 may
Palais des congrès
Number of participant : 400
Acces our photo gallery
Introduction
“The number and magnitude of projects presented at the Forum are indicative of the city’s vibrancy and investor confidence. Enthusiastic developers show boldness and vision, benefitting all Montrealers.”
– Michel Leblanc
President and CEO
Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal
PART I – OVERVIEW: MONTRÉAL IN TRANSFORMATION
Projet Nouveau Centre: The Art of Redefining the Downtown Experience
“Today’s real estate development sector can be likened to urban planning. We can no longer work in silos with a stand-alone vision.”
– Claude Sirois
President, Retail
Ivanhoé Cambridge
How the MIL Campus is Transforming the City
“What is unique about the new MIL campus is that it will be a transit point for students and Montrealers, but, above all, for knowledge. The campus is the cornerstone of a brand new living environment that will generate a lot of buzz in the years to come.”
– Guy Breton
Rector
Université de Montréal
1111 Atwater: A Living Environment at the Foot of the Mountain
“We are fortunate right now in Montréal. The city is bursting with remarkable, visionary projects.”
– Francis Charron
President
Vice-président
EMD construction
Broccolini Marks Saint-Jacques Street with its Victoria Project on the Park and the Construction of the National Bank's New Head Office
“We are proud of our Montréal roots and our accomplishments. From the area near the Bell Centre and now to the Faubourg des Récollets, we have helped transform downtown Montréal.”
– Roger Plamondon
President – Real Estate Group
Broccolini
Royalmount Project: A Multifunctional Urban Centre
“We care about traffic. It’s in everyone’s interest to come up with a sane solution for mobility. It’s a shared problem with a shared responsibility. This is why I am happy to report that incredible and talented individuals from all levels of government, and including ourselves, have spent thousands of hours to find a solution.”
– Andrew Lufty
President & CEO
Carbonleo
PART II – BUILDING THE CITY OF TOMORROW
Urban Development: Creating Conditions for Success
“We have talent in Montréal, and we can densify intelligently. I am confident that this is the solution to protect affordable housing. We can create a sense of community with a few extra storeys above our heads.”
– Laurence Vincent
Copresident
Prével
“TGTA has had a front-row seat on Montréal’s attractiveness. A year before we finished converting an industrial building with close to 400,000 square feet in Mile-Ex, we didn’t have a single square foot left to rent. We could never have hoped for those kinds of results 10 years ago.”
– Martin Galarneau
Partner
TGTA
Innovation in Construction: Future Trends and Opportunities
“The traditional model based on concurrent engineering is no longer the best way to encourage technological development. The ideal is to position yourself as an expert supplier to qualify and then to work on deploying technology in real time.”
– Stéphane Chayer
Vice President, Smart Infrastructure and Government Affairs Quebec
Siemens Canada
Siemens Canada
“Innovation isn’t only about technology, it’s also about how to harness that technology and use it to transform a project that is organized chaos into a structuring project.”
– Pierre Pomerleau
President and CEO
Pomerleau
HEC Montréal Returns to the Heart of the Business District
“In addition to responding to a need for space, this new building will help us bring our communities closer together — communities of active workers that come for further training and the business community in general. We were created by, and, more importantly, for, these communities.”
– Michel Patry
Director
HEC Montréal
Green Spaces and Biodiversity: The Forest Comes to the City
“The land that belongs to the Ville de Montréal represents only 34% of the territory. This is why it cannot effectively combat heat islands and the effects of climate change. We have to plant [trees] on the remaining 66%, which is private and institutional land.”
– Malin Anagrius
General Manager
Soverdi, Société de verdissement du Montréal métropolitain
“We are pleased to announce our participation on Soverdi’s Greening Leaders Committee of Montréal. We can also confirm a $1 million investment in greening Montréal. This financing means that 10,000 trees will be planted.”
– Viviane Croux
Vice President, National Accounts
TD Commercial Banking
Building Differently: The Social Economy Taking Over Real Estate
“I am announcing for the first time today our medium- and longer-term vision, which is to provide Montréal communal infrastructures for students and for retention, mainly of world-calibre international students.”
– Laurent Levesque
Coordinator
Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant (UTILE)
PART III – OPPORTUNITIES TO SEIZE
Enhancing Our Heritage Buildings
“We need to put in place a follow-up mechanism that extends over a generation to carry out enduring projects, which will become part of our heritage, participating fully in the economy of a city we won’t want to leave.”
– Dinu Bumbaru, C.M
Policy Director
Héritage Montréal
“A major problem our heritage buildings face is that we have to follow today’s rules, when these buildings may have been built more than a century ago. There is clearly a dichotomy of discourse.”
– Georges Coulombe
Président
Gestion Georges Coulombe inc.
Embarking on the Faubourgs Sector Project
“Our vision of the Quartier des lumières project is to use every part of the DNA of this neighbourhood – which has a strong identity – to form a whole that will represent the soul of the area.”
– Pierre-Jacques Lefaivre
Executive Vice-President
Groupe Mach inc.
“All of society has to have influence during the design of a project, not just one actor. It’s important not to throw up barricades, but rather to see how we can work together to improve projects.”
– Ron Rayside
Architect, Senior Partner
Rayside Labossière – Architecture, Design, Urban Development
“It is a neighbourhood that needs love and visionary young people to rebuild the urban fabric, which is fairly unstructured. I think the neighbourhood will see a huge increase in value over time.”
– Laurence Vincent
Copresident
Prével
District Central: From an Industrial Sector to a Business District
“We were able to identify three business hubs to bring together the variety of functions within the territory: the textile sector is becoming a design sector; factories are evolving into urban manufacturing operations, and the technology industry has deep roots here.”
- Hélène Veilleux
Executive Director
District Central
Creating an Impetus for Revitalizing East Montréal
“With the adoption of the Declaration to Revitalize Montréal East in November, the Government of Quebec and the Ville de Montréal are joining forces to say: Yes, it’s Montréal East’s turn!”
- Caroline Bourgeois
Borough Mayor of Rivière-des-Prairies–Pointe-aux-Trembles
Associate councillor responsible for economic development and for the eastern Montréal
“We have to test the interest of investors in our industrial heritage. New business models, such as collaborative platforms, could allow users from the light industry sector – which tends to be highly technological – to temporarily use the facilities for their needs.”
- Andrée De Serres, PH. D.
Chairholder
Ivanhoé Cambridge Real Estate Research Chair
École des sciences de la gestion, Université du Québec à Montréal (ESG UQAM)
“The $100 million the government has allocated for the decontamination of Montréal East – in addition to the $75 million from the Ville de Montréal – is great news, but it is going to take a lot more.”
- Pierre-Olivier Simard
Vice President Sales and Business Development, Groupe C. Laganièr
Groupe C. Laganière
“There are 500,000 people who live in the eastern part of the city, which is poorly served by public transit. We need to immediately introduce public transit on Notre-Dame St. if we want to create economic and residential development in the area.”
- Christian Yaccarini
President & CEO
Société de développement Angus
Addresses by elected officials
“Montréal is the city that has seen the strongest growth in the last year, in part due to the real estate sector, the business community and the construction industry. You contribute to this enviable economic health.”
– Valérie Plante
Mayor of Montréal
President of the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal
Ville de Montréal
The Major Metropolitan Projects Strategic Forum was organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal. It was made possible through the invaluable cooperation of our Silver sponsors: Montreal Gazette and Siemens Canada; and our Bronze sponsor: the Société de développement Angus.