A daring utopia that has become grandiose, the Technopôle Angus is celebrating its 25th anniversary. This deserves to be underlined. The Société de développement Angus (SDA) designed a project that is now recognized as the most remarkable in Quebec in the field of sustainable urban development.
In 1992, the project of an industrial park to compensate for the loss of approximately 900 jobs resulting from the closure of the Angus factory appeared relevant, but unrealizable. The CDEC Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie and the project manager, Christian Yaccarini, had neither the funds nor the necessary skills. The agreement concluded in 1998 provided for a payment spread over ten years from the plots used.
The seller was convinced that the land would be returned to him for non-payment. He was unaware that Christian Yaccarini, who had become the CEO of the SDA, would succeed in internalizing the skills and mobilizing the necessary resources with the help of Louis Roquet, chairman of the board of directors, and his members, then of a team of committed professionals.
In 2022, the achievements of this Technopôle are impressive, as evidenced by the conversion of a factory pavilion (Locoshop Angus) and the construction of 13 buildings, the presence of 70 companies and organizations and the creation of 3,000 jobs. The latest phase of the Angus Lands development is a hybrid eco-district that includes 400 housing units (affordable condominiums, student housing and social housing) and office space, local services and businesses.
Among the latest innovations, an energy loop common to all buildings which reduces GHG emissions by 26% and the use of rainwater for a 40% reduction in drinking water consumption. In addition, 25% of the area of the eco-district is devoted to vegetation and public areas.
Technopôle Angus is doubly multi-sectoral. On the one hand, the objectives of revitalization and job creation have enabled the mobilization of resources from the three sectors: public, private and social economy. The latter is well represented with, among others, Insertech, the Carrefour d’économie sociale and, more recently, the Caisse d’économie solidaire Desjardins and Dynamo. The three entities of the Angus Group come under the social economy: the SDA is in charge of operations; the Angus Heritage Society takes care of the orientation and the Angus Land Trust, the preservation.
On the other hand, the activities are also diversified: new economy, business services, financial services, personal services (for example, health and well-being and daycare services), shops and food. Finally, the future health innovation zone, currently awaiting approval by Quebec, includes two sites, the Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital (HMR) and the Technopôle Angus for medical technology and digital health companies.
A first generation of transfer
The Technopôle was by definition a niche that was protected and difficult to transfer. For private developers in the 1990s, these lands were to be avoided because they were contaminated and under the surveillance of civil society organizations. The Technopôle Angus has also established itself as a “life-size laboratory for sustainable urban development and social innovation”. Tangible elements (for example the energy loop) and intangible elements (revitalization process) bear witness to this, as many transferable innovations.
A first generation of innovation transfer outside the Technopôle gave rise to two types of projects. The first type consists of large-scale projects to requalify a neglected urban area. It can be illustrated by two achievements: the construction of 2-22 Sainte-Catherine, inaugurated in 2012, for seven cultural organizations and the Carré Saint-Laurent, an eight-storey building at a cost of $115 million inaugurated in 2019 after ten years of twists and turns. The second type of project results from support requests from social economy organizations. Two more modest but structuring examples: the major overhaul of the La Licorne theater building, completed in 2011, and the relocation in 2016 of La Maison d’Haïti to the Saint-Michel district.
A second generation of transfer
The second generation, even more daring, aims for the transferability of the Technopôle as an innovation matrix for devitalized sites in the east of Montreal. This expansion was publicly announced in September 2018 at a public meeting marking the 20e anniversary of the Technopole.
In a favorable political context in the east of Montreal, the SDA provoked in the spring of 2019 the emergence of the Alliance for the east of Montreal, which brings together the main socio-economic actors of the territory, the Chamber of Commerce of east of Montreal to the neighborhood tables, through public institutions in education and health. This initiative has enabled actors from different backgrounds to give themselves a shared vision of integrated urban development that is part of the social and ecological transition.
With the Alliance, the Technopôle ceases to be a niche to become a prototype that can be used to requalify a wasteland, revitalize the “downtown” of a district or create an innovation zone anchored in the territory. The relevance and influence of the SDA are thereby reinforced even if additions to its ecosystem have become necessary, such as the Angus Financial Trust, to sustain existing and future achievements.
Following this shift, the SDA supported the production of two inventories of innovative companies in the east of Montreal, one for technological innovations, the other for social innovations. These encouraging results were shared with the members of the Alliance, which itself supported more in-depth research into structuring social initiatives emerging in the territory. For its own activities, the SDA has identified sites where a revitalization process would be desirable and desired, such as Vieux-Pointe-aux-Trembles, Montréal-Nord and the Saint-Michel district, among others.
Certain structuring elements for the innovation matrix are essential from the outset, such as the public launch of the project’s co-production process with citizens and stakeholders and the purchase of land to make common spaces. Each of the sites has its specificity in terms of personality and trajectory, but all share common challenges in a territory that has been abandoned for too long (for example, mobility), hence a relational polycentrism that would be based on consultation between the various matrices of innovation created.
Ultimately, the second-generation transfer will result in the Technopôle Angus being overtaken, since the envisaged result is that of a transformation of the east end of Montreal. For this territory, it is less a question of catching up with the west of the metropolis than of sketching out the city of tomorrow. In this sense, many wastelands and devitalized neighborhoods are a strong incentive to build something different from what already exists, but oriented towards the future, firmly anchored in ecological and social transition.