The Westcliff Group wants to transform Place Angrignon into a “mixed residential project” where local businesses and residents coexist. The company does not wish to comment on the initiative or detail what it intends to do with the existing buildings.
Westcliff, owner of around twenty shopping centers, including Place Angrignon and Carrefour Angrignon, has just registered one of its subsidiaries in the Quebec Lobbyists Registry.
The company wants to convince the City of Montreal to modify the current urban planning regulations to achieve what it presents as “a mixed residential commercial project”.
About 1,600 housing units – including “rental condos and apartments” – would coexist with local businesses.
The requested changes “aim to allow the increase in height and authorized density”, we can read in the register. The company is asking to increase the authorized height from 6 to 16 floors, which would increase the load factor.
Westcliff does not wish to comment on the process or detail what it intends to do with the buildings on the land at this time.
The second life of shopping centers
Place Angrignon is an open-concept plaza with eight tenants, including a Toys “R” Us.
However, its visibility and traffic, it owes mainly to Carrefour Angrignon, which is next door. The latter, one of the main shopping centers in the Montreal region, brings together more than 200 retailers over an area of 1.5 million square feet.
In recent weeks, similar steps have been taken by owners of shopping centers.
In October, Place Versailles initiated similar steps with the City of Montreal to transform the shopping center into a “mixed real estate project” where businesses, office spaces and residences would coexist: condominiums, rental apartments and social housing.
In October, Montrealer Canderel announced that she wanted to buy out Cominar’s assets for $ 2.2 billion.
About the shopping centers it would own – Mail Champlain, Center Rockland, Center Laval, Centropolis, etc. -, the CEO of the company, Brett Miller, told the To have to : “It will certainly be necessary to change the use of parts of these buildings according to the needs of the communities that are around. “
A path that also involves the realization of projects that integrate businesses and residences.
The desire of shopping center owners to breathe new life into their establishment is “part of a fundamental trend that has been observed for several years”, recalls Jean-François Grenier, Senior Director at the Altus Group.
The objective is twofold: to maximize space and obtain additional income. Regarding additional income, Jean-François Grenier argues that different strategies can be favored: “If we build condos, we sell air rights and it pays off instantly. If rental apartments are being built, then the business is de facto an investor who will earn income that will be spread over time. “
In some cases, housing construction can also be used to create goodwill. “But in the case of Westcliff and Place Angrignon, the number of [1600] will not become the main driver of traffic for a center like Carrefour Angrignon, ”he points out.
Indeed, Carrefour Angrignon serves sectors – LaSalle, L’Île-des-Sœurs, Montreal, Lachine, Montreal-West, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, Côte-Saint-Luc, even Dorval and Châteauguay – whose populations total nearly 612,000 people.