The City of Montreal had to block off part of Sainte-Catherine Street West on Friday due to an unoccupied century-old building threatening to collapse just in front of the Eaton Centre.
Around noon, City employees were busy placing barriers in front of the building, blocking off part of the sidewalk and the traffic lane. Passers-by could still move on the sidewalk opposite, in front of the shopping center.
Earlier in the morning, a simple yellow cord had been installed to quickly erect a security perimeter.
On site, it was possible to see that a few bricks from the party wall had fallen onto the neighboring vacant lot.
The building, which is unoccupied, is indeed located right next to the former strip club, Super Sexe, which went up in smoke in October 2021.
It also belongs to the same owner as this heritage building, which burned down after being abandoned.
Engineers had inspected the building earlier this week. They had then noted a problem of integrity of the structure of the building which could present dangers, confirmed on the spot, André Jude, who presented himself as the owner.
However, the company that owns the building and the vacant land is owned by New York real estate developer Ben Ashkenazy.
According Forbeshis fortune is valued at $2.6 billion.
Not enough action
“How did we get there?!” asked on Twitter Glenn Castanheira, general manager of the Montreal Centre-ville Commercial Development Corporation.
In 2021, after the Super Sex fire, Mr. Castanheira protested against the fact that speculators were neglecting the maintenance of heritage buildings.
“The fire happened in 2021, we are in 2023. It seems that not much has been done,” said Dinu Bumbaru, policy director at Heritage Montreal.
He hopes that a solution can be found to consolidate the building.
“We put a lot of money collectively to renovate Sainte-Catherine Street, embellish it, improve it and highlight its heritage,” he said. “And there, we have a very beautiful building which risks disappearing because we may have focused too much on forms and not the site itself.”
According to him, the City of Montreal has the powers to act in terms of public security. However, he believes that the procedures are sometimes a bit slow.
The city gates should be replaced in the evening by those of the owner.
The security zone should remain the same, which will still block the street, Jude said.
“To ensure public safety, Sainte-Catherine Street West is closed to automobile traffic for a week, between McGill College Avenue and Robert-Bourassa Boulevard,” spokesperson Gonzalo Nunez said at the start of the evening. from the city.
He also specified that an independent report has been commissioned by the Ville-Marie borough to assess the actions to be implemented to ensure public safety.