The Bouchard government's ministry for the Montreal region has finally embarked on a project that could actually benefit this city's economy. The government last week approved the $185-million plan to double the size of the Montreal convention centre.
Recognizing that the existing centre is too small to compete with many of its counterparts around North America, the government will expand the building's exhibition space to 200,000 square feet. This should boost the city's ability to attract larger - and more profitable - gatherings.
Still, the size of the expanded building will stack up only modestly next to many competitors' centres. For example, Phoenix, whose metropolitan population is considerably smaller than that of Montreal, has a centre with 330,000 square feet of exhibit space. Toronto's newly expanded centre will be more than twice as big as Montreal's, with 460,000 square feet. Chicago, with 2.2 million square feet, is in another league entirely.
The ministry is betting that Montreal's expanded centre will occupy a niche, drawing specialized gatherings within the fields of science and high technology. This may be a clever strategy, but it carries a heavy risk: if the plan yields only disappointing results, it will be very difficult to enlarge the centre once again. That's because, unlike the proposed rival site for the convention centre in the Place Bonaventure area, the chosen location allows no room for further expansion.
Still, from an urban-planning viewpoint, the decision to expand the existing centre - rather than to build at Place Bonaventure - makes excellent sense. The minister for the Montreal region, Robert Perreault, seems refreshingly aware of how the project could help overcome the psychological barrier that separates Old Montreal from downtown. Among other things, he wants the enlargement to cover the hideous "trench" of the Ville Marie Expressway.
The expansion's design has yet to be decided. The Bouchard government should not repeat the gaffe of the Levesque government which, in choosing the original centre's design, seemed obsessed with wanting to show the world how modern Quebec was. The result was a tourist turn-off - an impersonal, neo-brutalist building that reflected nothing about the uniqueness of this city. This time, let's get it right
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