The plan to build an office tower next to the iconic Maison Alcan has been put on hold and opponents are hoping the delay will be permanent.
The hold is to allow the city to further assess downtown vacancy rates.
The project was met with dismay by admirers of architecture.
“People from all over the world came to see it,” said Adrian Sheppard, a professor emeritus of architecture at McGill. “All our students used to go see the Alcan project.”
“Putting a 30-story tower on top of Maison Alcan was not really a way to send a message of development a-la-Montrealaise,” said Heritage Montreal Policy Director Dinu Bumbaru.
The Maison Alcan, formerly known as the Winter Club, was designed in 1912 by William and Edward Maxwell, the same architects who designed Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Birks building.
It opened in 1913, housing what would later become Skate Canada. In 1932, it would host the World Figure Skating Championships.
In 1943, the federal government took over the building as part of the war effort, dubbing it the HMCS Donnacona.
While a 1996 report of federal heritage building said that “Any surviving early interior finishes should be documented and preserved and incorporated in future work,” the building was sold in 2008, losing its heritage designation.
The new proposal calls for everything but the façade to be torn down, a plan that Sheppard dismissed.
“Hold hands with the old building,” he said. “Don’t punch it in the face.”
