Our downtown needs love

Downtown Montreal needs a declaration of love. A real. A solid. With supporting evidence. Not a lukewarm or beige love, declared lip service. No. A burning love that moves mountains.

This Monday marks the end of compulsory teleworking. Employees will be able to return to the office as determined by their employer. We already know that many companies will favor a hybrid model that will become the norm. Result: fewer workers will go downtown daily, a drop of approximately 19 to 25% according to a study by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal unveiled last Friday.

Of course there will be repercussions. Among other things, a drop in public transport ridership at rush hour as well as a decrease in expenses of approximately 14%, according to the same study.

That said, our downtown is not on life support. You just have to go for a walk to see that despite the crisis, and despite the empty premises, it is still busy.

If he managed to keep his head above water during the crisis, it is because he does not depend exclusively on his workers to survive. It is its mixed composition that has allowed it not to sink completely: the diversity of the companies that are installed there, the presence of university campuses, housing, which continues to develop. Yes, downtown lost 3.1% of its population during the pandemic, but it is still the one that has experienced the strongest demographic increase in the country, 24% since 2016. As for students and tourists, they will come back quietly.

Our city center is therefore not in agony, but it still needs a shock treatment if we don’t want the aftermath of the virus to turn into a long COVID.

Over the next few months, the City of Montreal will hold public consultations in connection with its strategic plan for downtown development, which extends to 2030.

It is very good. But for the moment, we must think of a short-term plan to allow the city center to recover and prepare for the beautiful season. This is the message rightly hammered home by the main players in Montreal’s economic life, including the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Michel Leblanc.

Last Friday, in the presence of the Minister responsible for the Metropolis, Chantal Rouleau, he therefore presented a strategy for the next year. And he challenged Quebec and Ottawa so that the two levels of government push the wheel. Without their participation, we will not succeed. We need to create a “wow” effect that will attract even more people to the streets of the metropolis in the coming months.

The Chamber of Commerce has identified a few avenues, including assistance for festivals so that they can plan their big comeback now.

In a study carried out by PwC, on the impact of the pandemic in the six main Canadian city centers, we also insist on the importance of greening and pedestrianization as an intervention to relaunch the country’s city centers.

The Chamber of Commerce is also right to insist on the importance of fluidity. If the orange cones are swarming and the subways aren’t clean and frequent, people won’t come.

The Chamber of Commerce also invites workers to rediscover their city center in a different light, a bit like rekindling the flame of a sleeping couple. If the hybrid work allows them to go to the office less often, we suggest that they see the days when they will be downtown as a mini-business trip: lunch in a good restaurant, a show at the end of during the day, a short shopping spree, they are invited to make the most of what their town center has to offer. Once again, budgets are needed to be able to organize large-scale activities that will create the event.

In the end, all of Quebec will benefit from the revival of downtown Montreal which, it should be remembered, remains an economic lung for the entire province.