It is a huge building on land that is just as huge: the former head office of the Montreal School Service Center (CSSDM), located in Rosemont, has been unoccupied for three years and is in an advanced state of disrepair. The CSSDM wants to make it a vocational training school, but others are pleading for social housing.
Impossible to miss this imposing building on Sherbrooke East Street, a stone’s throw from the Olympic Stadium. For years, it hosted the administrative center of the CSSDM. However, the dilapidation of the place meant that the employees left it for good in 2020, after sections of the building were condemned.
Since then, nothing has happened there, but the CSSDM has plans to build a professional training center there.
There would be grouped together the Faubourgs-de-Montréal School of Trades and that of Horticultural Trades – linked to the Botanical Garden – which are not in places suitable for teaching, explains Mathieu Desjardins, director of the service, in an interview. of school organization.
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, THE PRESS
The entrance to the building overlooks Sherbrooke Street, in Rosemont.
“A training center for beneficiary attendants is not a classroom with desks. These are hospital beds, baths. Currently, it’s working, but what we’re being asked to do is increase the training rate for these people,” says Mr. Desjardins.
Quebec has in fact invested millions in professional training, particularly for the start of training in “priority” areas, for example to train personnel to lend a hand in the health network.
Cheaper than a secondary school, says the CSSDM
The CSSDM wants to play a game of chess, real estate version: by moving the students from the Faubourgs-de-Montreal School of Trades to another building, we could increase the reception capacity of the Pierre secondary school -Dupuy, in the Center-South. The two schools (professional and ordinary) currently coexist.
This is because it is anticipated that this sector of the city, near the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, will soon need space to accommodate high school students. The upcoming real estate projects on Radio-Canada land and in the Bridge-Bonaventure sector will soon change the situation, says Mathieu Desjardins.
“If, for example, we decide to build a school in Bridge-Bonaventure, just for the land, it will cost 150 million. Building a secondary school with 1000 places, in the market, is 150 million. So we would be at 300 million,” calculates Mr. Desjardins.
These future students could go to the Pierre-Dupuy school, a “secondary school which is made to be a secondary school,” continues the director of the CSSDM school organization service.
Quebec says no, for now
The school service center submitted a project in this sense as part of the 2023-2033 Quebec Infrastructure Plan, but Quebec said no. For the moment.
“At this time, however, it appeared premature to recommend the continuation of the project since certain elements, such as the scope of the work or the cost estimate, remained to be clarified,” replied Esther Chouinard, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, who adds that discussions with the CSS are continuing.
Should we demolish the old administrative center, judged to be in “very poor condition” and whose asset maintenance deficit is more than 15 million? How much would it cost to bring together professional schools? On these two points, the CSSDM is not moving forward, but intends to return to the charge with Quebec this year.
Building social housing
Not so fast, says the Rosemont Housing Committee, which believes that public land that becomes available “must remain at the service of the community”.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE ROSEMONT HOUSING COMMITTEE
A few years ago, the Rosemont Housing Committee teamed up with design students from UQAM to imagine what could be developed on the vast land on Sherbooke Street.
It must not be ceded, alienated, sold to private interests.
Jean-Claude Laporte, community organizer for the Rosemont Housing Committee
The group is not opposed to the establishment of a vocational school on this site, but will work closely to ensure that this large building and the entire land remain in the public domain.
We could build social housing there, says Jean-Claude Laporte, community organizer for the Rosemont Housing Committee. “It was everyone’s taxes that paid for this land, it must not only serve a minority,” adds the community organizer.
The Committee says that it now has contact with the CSSDM in this regard. “We are in discussions more than before. It was necessary to send a formal notice to get a simple response. They did not respond to emails or phone calls,” says Mr. Laporte. “We don’t want to lose the ground,” he concludes.