Building on the success obtained in Bécancour, where a state-owned company controls the land in the industrial park, Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon does not rule out the possibility that Quebec may acquire strategic land in eastern Montreal.
“I do not exclude anything, confided the minister in a press briefing. The government could buy Esso’s land in the East or another. We will not buy all the lots in the east of Montreal, but one, two or three maybe. »
Mr. Fitzgibbon participated Tuesday noon in an event of the Chamber of Commerce of the East of Montreal where he announced the main lines of his program of 23 million, promised during the last provincial budget. The sums will supplement the financing of structuring projects for the east of the island of Montreal. The call for projects is currently open. All are invited to submit their proposal, including the private company. The MNA for Anjou–Louis-Riel, Karine Boivin Roy, will be responsible for the envelope.
Regarding the potential purchase of industrial land, Mr. Fitzgibbon said he is comfortable that with current market conditions, the government can buy land, carry out its decontamination in collaboration with the City and the federal government, bring the services there and resell it to a user so that the latter makes a strategic investment for the east of Montreal.
The eastern sector of the island of Montreal has nearly 9 million square meters of industrial land available, a rarity in the market. However, these lands are often contaminated and devoid of infrastructure. In short, everyone is watching each other to find out who will move first, and development is long overdue.
The land of the former Esso refinery, in Montreal East, is in everyone’s sights. It is 700,000 square meters. It is contaminated and it is located in the heart of the fringe to be redeveloped, between Sherbrooke and Notre-Dame streets. Esso commissioned a broker to sell it a year ago.
Crossed at the event, the mayor of Montreal East, Anne St-Laurent, also sees this opening with a good eye. “If the government buys the land from Esso tomorrow morning, I can start implementing the vision we have for Montreal East,” she commented.
In its vision of development by 2050, Montreal East wants to develop three new areas with its vacant lots. The area north of Highway 40 will be dedicated to logistics. The area south of Highway 40 and north of Sherbrooke Street would become an industrial ecology technology park. Finally, the fringe located between Sherbrooke Street and Notre-Dame Street, where Esso’s land is located, would be transformed into a smart neighborhood where knowledge institutions, housing, light industries and leisure and entertainment facilities rub shoulders. .
In discussion with the Speaker of the House on Tuesday noon, Minister Fitzgibbon raised the idea of ​​creating a virtual structure to oversee development in Montreal’s east end, as opposed to the legal structure that oversees the Bécancour industrial park, the site privileged by Quebec to receive the links of the battery industry.
“Industrial sites, you have to have them. We need industrial parks. In Quebec, we don’t have that many. In Bécancour, it’s over. We’re going to have to put up a fence soon. There is no room left. We are going to Saguenay. We will probably go to Abitibi for the mines. The east of Montreal suddenly became a place of choice. »