The city of Montreal has agreed to pay the Hudson’s Bay Company nearly $690,000 over a construction job that began seven years ago.

In August 2007, an employee at the company’s downtown Montreal store noticed a crack in a concrete slab located underneath the store on de Maisonneuve Blvd. between Aylmer and Union Sts.

Experts were called in and determined the crack ran much longer than was first realized. De Maisonneuve was closed to traffic to allow city workers time to fix the issue.

The cracked structure was originally built by Henry Morgan Properties Ltd., Hudson Bay’s predecessor at that address, and an agreement between the company and the city stipulated that all maintenance was Henry Morgan’s, and then Hudson’s Bay’s, responsibility.

The repair work involved excavating part of de Maisonneuve and rebuilding what was destroyed according to city plans.

But months later, Hudson Bay filed a lawsuit claiming the construction of the bike path on de Maisonneuve caused the crack, and asked for a little over $638,000 from the city.

In November of this year the two sides came to an agreement in which each paid for a portion of the repairs, but the city would reimburse Hudson Bay for the sidewalk and bike path reconstruction work.