Presented in the spring of 2019, the project to transform and expand the Montreal Museum of Social Art has been postponed for at least five years, La Presse has learned. A project that is likely to exceed 200 million dollars.
The budget for the museum’s expansion project will be reviewed due to overall rising costs and inflation, McCord Stewart Museum’s new president and CEO, Anne Eschapasse, confirmed to La Presse. last April.
“We have to do a very rigorous analysis of the functional and technical plan to ensure that it meets the needs. This is something that we need to review with our teams and with the board of directors. There is no architect’s plan yet, we are still upstream. »
The expansion concerns the current historic building, as well as the land adjoining the building, occupied by the former restaurant Le Caveau, closed in 2011, which should provide an additional 300,000 square feet to the museum.
The preliminary project was presented in the spring of 2019 by former President and CEO Suzanne Sauvage, who argued that the project would triple the exhibition area and increase the number of visitors from 300,000 to 600,000 annually. . The construction of an auditorium and a terrace was also planned.
But the pandemic torpedoed the project, says Ms. Eschapasse. “COVID-19 really shut everything down,” she tells us.
The new museum was initially estimated at $180 million, with a $120 million contribution from federal and provincial levels of government. The Emmanuelle Gattuso Foundation had made a pledge of 15 million. The balance was to come from a private donation campaign.
“We now have to go over the functional and technical plan, start working on financing, coordinate all that with our partner, McGill, which owns the two buildings we occupy, so there is a lot of analysis and mobilization work to be done. do around this project,” says Anne Eschapasse.
In a written communication with La Presse, the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications says it has been informed of the postponement of the McCord Stewart Museum transformation project. “The Ministry will accompany the organization when it is ready in the development of its project and will announce the height of its financial commitment in due time,” the government simply said.
Anne Eschapasse, who intends to take new steps with the two levels of government, maintains that the expansion of the museum is fundamental for the future of the institution.
“We must not forget that we are talking about the merger of three museums. There was the Fashion Museum in 2017, which is the only fashion museum in Canada, and the Stewart Museum collection of 2.5 million objects and photographs, fully integrated into McCord in 2021. At the moment, we do not have the reception capacity to meet the demand of the public or school groups. »
Ms. Eschapasse intends to do everything possible to obtain “adequate” funding to expand the museum, while working with a “reasonable” envelope.
