The City of Montreal has terminated a contract worth nearly eight million dollars with the general contractor it appointed last year to ensure the transformation of a former public bath with heritage value in the Plateau-Mont-Royal into a cultural place, learned The duty.
A situation that once again pushes back the schedule for the completion of the project, to the great dismay of residents and artists in the area.
Built in 1910 to ensure the hygiene of the Montreal working class, the Saint-Michel bath is today marked with graffiti. Fences also framed a construction site that was visibly abandoned during the passage of the To have to around this Mile End building.
And for good reason: the City of Montreal suspended it earlier this summer in anticipation of the termination of the contract awarded in March 2021 to the general construction contractor Norgérec, we found by consulting documents adopted Wednesday by the Executive Committee.
The contractor was to redevelop the site for an amount of approximately $7.8 million. The objective was to transform the former public bath into a cultural venue including, in particular, a performance hall with around 100 seats inside the swimming pool, as well as an exhibition hall in the former boiler room of the ‘place.
The work, which began in the spring of 2021, was due to end in April 2022. However, as of last July, barely 30% of the site had been completed, in particular due to decontamination work and the “discovery of infiltration of water in the basement” following the excavation of the rock on the site, indicate the documents of the executive committee.
Dissatisfied and worried about an explosion in the costs of the project, whose bill has continued to climb in recent years, the City decided to terminate the contract of the contractor and, by extension, of the architectural firm that she had mandated.
“The restoration of old or heritage buildings often reserves unforeseen events despite the assessment carried out upstream. This was the case for the Saint-Michel bath. The teams had several unexpected challenges, which pushes us to assess precisely what remains to be done and the costs that will be attached to it,” said the office of the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante.
The City is therefore back to square one. It intends to launch a new call for tenders next year to ask experts to revise the plans and specifications for the project. The awarding of a new contract for construction work on this site is scheduled for 2024, which should lead to the opening of the redeveloped site at the “end of 2025”, i.e. 10 years after the public bath Saint-Michel would have been condemned.
“The impression it gives us is that they are waiting for it to fall to do something,” said Linda Tremblay, a Mile End resident met on Wednesday by The duty. Like several other residents of the sector, she is exasperated by the slowness of this construction site. “It’s a building in which there is potential, it’s a shame that we can’t benefit from it”, laments Michel Carignan among others.
“It’s sad that we leave such a beautiful building abandoned,” also sighs Clara Hernandez, who knew the Saint-Michel bath before it closed.
A cultural vocation
The history of this public bath, more than a century old, has seen several twists and turns in recent decades.
Abandoned in 1993 from its initial function as a swimming pool, this building was then taken over by the cultural community, which held occasional artistic events there over the years. The organization VIVA! Art Action notably presented several performances there between 2006 and 2013, while dance, theater and culinary arts events took shape there until the City condemned this building to closure seven years ago.
“It was really an experimental development of the place”, recalls Michel Lefebvre, the general manager of the TOPO creation center, who took part in September 2013 in an event of the artistic community called “We occupy the Bain Saint-Michel ! in order to claim the preservation of a cultural vocation of this site. “It was very festive, a little too much for some [voisins] “laughs Mr. Lefebvre, who is now “waiting” for the redevelopment of the building to materialize.
The Saint-Michel bath also has great architectural value. “Inside, the volume of the pool enclosure, its natural lighting, the finishes of the walls and of the basin are also components of great value”, notes the executive committee.
However, the director of policies at Héritage Montréal, Dinu Bumbaru, is concerned that the new delays in the realization of the redevelopment project of the City have the effect of damaging this building in a lasting way. “The building risks going there,” he warns. He also hopes that the City will ensure that the building does not deteriorate while waiting for the resumption of work.
The official opposition to the Town Hall deplores for its part that the Saint-Michel bath is added to “the long list of poorly managed projects” by the Plante administration. “Whether it’s the refurbishment of City Hall or the organic waste treatment centres, cost overruns and complications are piling up. At the end of the day, Montrealers are paying more for services that they will not be able to benefit from for several years,” wrote the leader of Ensemble Montreal, Aref Salem.