As soon as the project to convert Place Versailles into a residential district was revealed this week, Jean-Sébastien Girard published a message on a social network to explain to what extent the shopping center in eastern Montreal represented something central to him. He spoke frankly about his “HQ”, and probably tens of thousands of Montrealers who have been there for 60 years could say the same.
The Radio-Canada host spent weekends there as a child with his grandmother, then alone, as a teenager, in the 1990s. “The Place hosted a cinema that I frequented assiduously,” he wrote. . And an HMV where I queued to buy a copy of Falling into You », the Céline Dion record.
There is therefore no better place than this “old man in his forties” (he will celebrate his 49e birthday on June 24) to explain concretely and without malice the existential relationships with the shopping center in contemporary Quebec. In a society of hyperconsumption, this is indeed the temple of all devotions, the concentrate of the era equal in symbolic force to fast food and the automobile, two other mythical objects of advanced capitalism moreover over-represented in Place Versailles as in countless sites of its kind.
“In front of Mikes, at the exit of Maxi”
The meeting was arranged on site “in front of Mikes, at the exit of Maxi”, according to the connoisseur’s instructions. He arrived through the door leading to the parking lot that can hold 4,000 vehicles. The first housing construction envisaged by the $2.2 billion real estate project could begin on this asphalt sea, probably before the end of the decade.
“At the beginning, we had to take two buses to come here from the family home in Rosemont,” says Mr. Girard. “The route changed at one point, and only one bus that we took in front of our house dropped us off here. »
He and his grandmother were going to eat at McDonald’s. She loved kibble. “We entered the Place and left our coats in a locker. She had a La Baie card. Sometimes we bought my mother gifts, like this autoresponder I gave her when I was eight. I could also buy things with my allowance, $5 a week, then $40 for a whole month. »
The stroll through Place Versailles lasted about an hour, during which the little king of the airwaves was greeted by around ten elderly admirers and a gentleman in an electric wheelchair. The knowledgeable guide described in detail the change of the place, especially the disappearance of old businesses (including its first bookstore for general readers). Several new boutiques now offer Middle Eastern fashion clothing, djellabas or scarves, due to demographic change.
“We bought fashionable sweaters with drawings of mushroom men,” says Jean-Sébastien Girard, who worked four hours — and only four hours — in a Levi’s store because he couldn’t stand having to bother customers. “We could buy laminated posters, the most expensive with neon lights. There was a joke store that sold fake dog poop. »
His grandfather played Santa Claus during the holiday season at Dupuis Frères, near what is now Place Émilie-Gamelin. Her grandmother and mother rarely shopped “downtown.” Since the pandemic, a bit like everyone else, Jean-Sébastien Girard buys almost everything online. “I still consume a lot. I often fill my Amazon cart. »
Quebec lagging behind
One of the explanations for the decline of shopping centers is there, in the great virtual shift. Large-area centers, like Dix30, offered the first fierce competition to shopping centers. Online commerce in turn threatens all these points of sale.
Place Versailles should therefore disappear, just like the Rockland Center, in Town of Mount Royal, and dozens of other temples of overconsumption in Quebec.
“It’s clear: it’s one of the things that will disappear in the coming years because of much more radical transformations in consumption habits,” says Gérard Beaudet, specialist in metropolitan urban planning and professor at the University of Montreal. “In the United States, this transformation has been underway for a long time. Large and even very large centers have been completely abandoned. Many have been demolished, others transformed into medical clinics or office towers. So it’s actually quite surprising that we are not further along in this movement in Quebec. »
He attributes this delay to overly lax urban planning rules which allow the continuation of urban sprawl, with constantly expanding suburbs, like the Universe, after the Big Bang. The Royalmount project, at the intersection of highways 15 and 40, on the island of Montreal, shows another astonishing example of development centered on commerce — in this case, on luxury consumption.
Professor Beaudet recalls that the March terrorist attack in Moscow took place in a similar location. They are now found everywhere, in Turkey, in the United Arab Emirates, in Asia… “It’s an extraordinary project in a country like Quebec. This is the kind of equipment that is built in Arab countries to position themselves on the international tourism and high-end consumption scene. The Royalmount is developed as in these countries, at a highway crossroads. »
“If we ever add housing, it risks attracting speculators. This will not make for a quality neighborhood: it will be an enclave dedicated to hyperconsumption,” notes the urban planning specialist.