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| Photoshop collage of Christian Yaccarini and J.F. Lisee |
The province will be transferring bureaucrats from the World Trade Centre on McGill street at the edge of Old Montreal to Christian Yaccarini's to-be-built office/condo/commercial complex straddling Cleo's strip club and the Monument Nationale.
The deal commits the government to renting 14,000 square metres of space for 25 years at a cost of $518 per sq/m for the first five years. The price rises 12.5% every five years, a deal totaling a hefty $137 million in rent due, a sum 45 percent higher than the current digs, according to an excellent recent article in La Presse.
Developer Christian Yaccarini is blameless in this deal as it's certainly his right to try to make a good deal on his property and he appears to have achieved just that.
It's not the first time the Quebec government has tried to claim the block. They attempted to take it over for Hydro Quebec offices in the 90s but that plan fell through.
The block, of course, is not the daintiest place around and attempts to get rid of the porno movie booth complexes and strip clubs have been an utter failure for decades and there's no reason to think that this new complex will do anything to scare those places out.
And while the government cites a desire to rid the city of dilapidation on the east side of the block, it must be remembered that the loss of some very lovely and historic greystones was largely a result of their own meddling, as the province has long expressed a desire to occupy that area, so developers have long had the itch to cash in on the government's obsession with building on the block.
PQ cabinet minister Jean-Francois Lisee defended the new lease deal in an interview with La Presse.
Lisee was, until just a few months ago, a journalist who spent his time writing articles about how English people are somehow at fault for not recognizing obscure Quebec youth celebrities such as Marie Mai.
The $160 million Angus Development complex is set to begin construction this fall and should be complete by the start of 2018.
Other spots would have been more logical for development. For example the space around the St. Lawrence metro station would have had the added advantage of being right atop a metro station.
The Lower Main - the symbolic dividing point between east and west, French and English - first became a focus for attempted ethnic dominance when the road was widened at the start of the last century.
Around 1910 the Societe St. Jean Baptiste's lobbied for major roadways to be built to lead to its headquarters at the Monument National and then about a century later they built a large student dorm across the street and the province appears to be in line with that same thinking as they've campaigned endlessly for the last 20 years to transform the block.
So the attempt to commandeer control of the Main lives on and will come at a price to taxpayers.