Chamber of Commerce Gets Creative to Boost Downtown Montreal’s Appeal

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Some $ 3.1 million of public money is being invested in a series of creative projects designed to brighten up downtown Montreal and attract office workers.

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Eight projects will be carried out after a call that produced 73 registrations, the Montreal Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said on Friday. Experts from the arts and tourism fields selected the winning bids as part of the Chamber of Commerce “I like to work downtown.” Bell.

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They include a hologram garden, an extended art festival, a hockey-themed mural on the facade of the Bell Center, and a multimedia installation by Montreal’s Moment Factory. The first projects will begin to take shape this fall, with most of the configurations planned for 2022.

The $ 3.1 million budget is part of a $ 23.5 million contribution from Quebec to Montreal’s central business district, announced in March.

“We want to breathe new life into the center,” Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon told a news conference on Friday. “The goal is to increase its attractiveness as a workplace and a place to do business.”

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The pandemic has deprived downtown Montreal of much of its office worker population for the past 18 months. Plans by many companies to bring employees back this fall have been put on hold as the fourth wave sweeps through Quebec, and Chamber of Commerce director Michel Leblanc acknowledges that the group’s campaign can only do so much if they infections continue to increase.

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With COVID-19 and the multiple blockages it caused, “Montreal’s heart stopped beating,” Fitzgibbon added. “Downtown Montreal is a true economic engine for all of Quebec, and our government recognizes this.”

Downtown office vacancies rose to 13.2 percent in the third quarter, real estate firm CBRE said Thursday. That’s the highest level since the fourth quarter of 2004.

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This isn’t the first time Montreal has turned to the arts to combat the COVID-19 blues. This summer, 30 vacant commercial spaces were made available to visual artists as part of a city-funded initiative to stimulate foot traffic.

Some of the winning projects already existed before the pandemic. Art Souterrain, founded in 2009, will use $ 315,000 in new funding to extend its 2022 edition to five to six months instead of the usual 30 days, said Frédéric Loury, director of the festival, which features art exhibitions in the underground city of Montreal.

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Montreal’s largest sports franchise is also doing its part to cheer up the area. Together with partners LNDMRK and Lumenpulse, the Canadiens plan to erect a 130 square meter display of “urban graffiti” on the east facade of the Bell Center that will come with a light show. About $ 415,000 in money from the Chamber of Commerce will go to cover the cost of the mural.

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“We’re going to paint to the ceiling,” Jon Trzcienski, the club’s vice president of marketing, said in an interview. “Weather permitting, we hope to have it ready for opening night, October 16. The lighting around the building will take a little longer to turn on, but the end result should be quite spectacular. We want to be a reflection of our history, but also young people ”.

Perhaps the most ambitious project is a $ 595,600 Moment Factory facility that seeks to turn part of the Eaton Center into an “immersive playground” through a concept called “augmented games” that the company developed.

“What we hope to do is propose a unique and fun experience that has never been done anywhere else,” said Eric Fournier, Partner at Moment Factory. “Augmented games transpose video games to real life. The human body becomes the joystick. “

Such facilities are not just fun, Fournier insists, “they encourage team building. If people are going to go back to the center, it has to be more than work. “

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