Developers and business community call for a tie-up with Cavendish

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A group of developers has joined the call for the Plante administration to move forward on the long-delayed Cavendish extension.

Along with the mayors of Côte-St-Luc, the city of Mount Royal and the district of St-Laurent, approximately 20 companies have so far lent their support to a statement calling on the city to resume its original timeline for the extension of Cavendish Blvd. in Côte-St-Luc to Cavendish Blvd. in St-Laurent, meeting at Royalmount Ave. in the town of Mount Royal. Among the companies that will support it is the flight simulator company CAE of St-Laurent.

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The project has been on pause since 2023, when the city decided not to grant the studies necessary to evaluate the project’s impact on the environment, a vital step before public hearings can begin. Since then, the city has not said when it will award the studies or even if it will award them.

Claude Marcotte, executive vice president of Carbonleo, which is building a mega-mall in Royalmount, said his project can move forward without the Cavendish expansion. However, adding another north-south artery would greatly help traffic flow.

“Since we decided to move forward with the project, we knew that the two main things we needed were the elevated link to the De La Savane metro station and the widening of Côte-de-Liesse Rd., which we did; we spent about $100 million,” Marcotte said in a virtual news conference. “So we did our part.”

He added that the expansion, which will likely cost about $200 million, is also key to the city’s plans to add 20,000 housing units in the Namur-Hippodrome sector.

“It’s a huge project, and it’s a personal opinion that Cavendish is quite important if not essential to the development that the Plante administration is proposing,” he said.

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Congestion on Décarie and Jean-Talon is hurting the area’s economy and will hurt any chance of further developing the area, said Sam Scalia, founder of the construction company. Devmontwhich is building the Westbury development of condominiums, hotels and commercial units near Décarie Blvd. and Vézina St. in the Snowdon sector.

“My opinion is that if you want to develop that area, it is currently landlocked, so the solution would be the extension of Cavendish to Royalmount,” Scalia said. “We have a beautiful opportunity to develop a downtown Montreal. “It would be a key element to unlocking this whole area, and I have been saying that for many years.”

Alan DeSousa, mayor of St-Laurent, added that the Cavendish expansion would also be key to allowing thousands of workers to have better access to their workplaces in the industrial sectors of St-Laurent and Town of Mount Royal, without having to obstruct the Décarie. Highway.

“Cavendish is not primarily a highway,” DeSousa said. “It is a complete plan that includes bike lanes, trams and cars. “That’s why we think we’re going to push forward to address these issues across the area, not just at the Hippodrome but across the West End, which would be well served by that.”

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The mayor of Côte-St-Luc, Mitchell Brownstein, added that Cavendish is planned as a mobility corridor, not to add more cars to the congested area, but to relieve congestion and promote public transport, since it would have a tram which would connect with the Namur metro. season.

Catherine Cadotte, spokesperson for Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, reached for comment Friday, did not respond if there are plans to award environmental impact studies for the Cavendish project.

Instead, Cadotte said the city is prioritizing an extension of Jean-Talon St. in the sector toward the area designated for Cavendish Blvd.

“A mobility study will be carried out in the fall on a renewed project that will include a tram, in the context of accelerating the development of the Namur-Hippodrome neighborhood,” Cadotte wrote in a text message. “The results of these studies will allow us to identify the necessary environmental studies.”

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