Griffintown Project Revised: District Griffin Unveiled

Photo: Devimco

Back in february last year, we had news on the project scaling back by 30% of its original size. Then in March 2009, Devimco was asking the city of Montreal to step in with financial help.

The much anticipated project in the southwest borough is now unveiled.

Scaled down to $475 million from the original $1.3 billion re-development plan originally presented by Devimco, the new project is now called “District Griffin”. The city of Montreal is investing an additional 30 million towards the development of public and green spaces and infrastructure renovations.

Phase 1 of District Griffin will include four towers, from 17 to 19 storeys,1,375 residential units, a 3-star hotel will also be built. Also 200,000 square feet of office space. Commercial spaces will be available on the groundfloor, with 130,000 square feet that will include restaurants, a daycare centre, small local businesses, a gym and a spa.

Griffintown: A no-go without the city’s financial help

Just two weeks ago we had news about the Griffintown Project scaling down to 30% from its original size.
Yesterday we had news via La Presse, that Devimco is asking the city of Montreal to step in with financial help, otherwise the project won’t be finished until 2013.

The city’s response: “We’ll evaluate the request and see what we could do”.

Be sure to read more on that soon.

Griffintown Project Revised: Reducing Its Size to 30%

[ Update Sept 31, 2010: Read the most recent post on this subject Griffintown Project Revised: District Griffin Unveiled ]

Due to the economic situation, and the difficulty of accessing bank financing, Devimco (the Company behind the Griffintown Project) has informed the City of Montreal that it no longer needs to acquire all the land within the original project boundary at this time. Over the past two years, the Company has paid several million dollars in guarantees to the current owners, who have agreed to sign purchase options.
Completed its $210 million financial package for the purchase of all the land on the site and the Company held options to purchase 87% of area targeted by the Griffintown PPU. The deterioration of the economic situation and the financial world has changed its plans.

Devimco announced that, starting in 2010, it will implement an alternate scenario that better responds to the new economic and financial reality and that will conform to planning regulations adopted in 2008. Devimco will focus its first investments in the southern part of the territory.

This revised project, which would be predominately residential and, to a lesser extent, office space and shops, will occupy an area equivalent to 30%of the original site. Full details of this new scenario will be made public towards the end of 2009.

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Griffintown Project: Suburban Reports

Photo by kinalaya

“Even as Tremblay administration officials announced they were going to accept Devimco’s massive $1.3 billion Griffintown development plan, urban planners and assorted city activists are still trying to rally the forces required to knock the project off the tracks.

At a Thursday meeting held at the downtown St. James United Church, almost 100 people, including city executive council member Alan DeSousa, heard McGill urban planning Professor Raphael Fischler and other experts denounce the project as dull, uninspired, and completely out of date with modern urban priorities. While few had anything good to say about the company’s plans for the site, more than a few questions were raised about the Tremblay administration’s apparently cozy, complicit and complacent arrangements with Devimco. Even as Université de Montréal urban design professor Michel Gariepy believes the city’s present leadership lacks the background and the aesthetic sense required to make such long-lasting decisions, he was especially dismayed by the failure of Montreal’s own urban planning department to stand up to their political masters at city hall. Among several observations, he could not understand why city planners were ready to ignore the city’s own building code along with its six-storey height restrictions in favour of Devimco’s 20-storey plus high-rise condo buildings scheduled to go up alongside its commercial strip development.”

Read the complete article: The Suburban

Selected Griffintown News reading:

• Save Griffintown! – Save Griffintown Blog
• Council gives green light to Griffintown project – Spacing Montreal
• More details on the Griffintown redevelopment – Spacing Montreal
• Last Irishman Standing – Montreal Mirror