Alimentation Couche-Tard and the developer of a condo tower near the Bell Center are being sued for at least $6 million because of negligent decontamination work. Hydrocarbons would continue to contaminate the plaintiff’s land and building.
The Solstice Montreal project, which houses more than 330 apartments spread over 44 floors, is located on rue de la Montagne in downtown Montreal. The tower was built on land where there was a Couche-Tard convenience store and an Esso gas station. The work was completed in 2021.
This case essentially boils down to the following: the companies subject to the lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of Quebec, knew that “contaminants” – hydrocarbons – were leaking onto adjacent land and building and did nothing to address them. the problem.
The building in question, currently vacant, is located on rue Lucien-L’Allier and its land adjoins that of the Solstice project. The plaintiffs are the insurer Canada Life and the I.G. Investment Management Company, which act for the firm GWL Realty Advisors.
“Plaintiffs will continue to suffer such inconvenience until corrective measures are put in place to prevent the migration of contamination from the Solstice Building from continuing,” reads the statement of claim. instance.
Essentially, the plaintiffs are seeking $6 million plus interest to pay for the cost of installing and operating a contaminant collection system. They warn that the amount claimed could be higher in the event of the discovery of other unpleasant surprises. The claims in the petition have yet to be proven in court.
The continued risk of discovering contaminants constitutes a “significant degradation greatly affecting the quality of the building”, argue the plaintiffs, without however offering detailed examples of the effects of the presence of hydrocarbons on the building.
Couche-Tard walked out of the picture in 2017 by selling the site, but according to the petition, the Quebec multinational was “contractually committed” to Solstice regarding environmental damage. Although an independent report concluded that the old gas station was the source of the contamination, nothing has changed.
“The plaintiffs insist that there were many exchanges with Couche-Tard and Solstice in connection with the facts presented and several missed opportunities for the defendants to investigate and rehabilitate the bedrock of the building before a condominium building is built there,” it says.
As of this writing, Couche-Tard and GWL Realty Advisors have not responded to questions sent by La Presse.
To mitigate the contamination, the plaintiffs decided to install a collection and treatment system of their own accord even though the dispute was not settled. Between 10 and 12 holes were drilled to a depth of 60 meters at the border between the land of the vacant building and that of the condo tower.
In the years preceding the deployment of this system, the petition explains that “pumping campaigns” occurred on several occasions between 2018 and 2020. In particular, at least 30 liters of contaminants were removed from the ground, which cost about $210,000. We are also asking for reimbursement of this amount.
