The Starcité cinema could be transformed as early as 2025 into a 200-room hotel integrated into the Parc Olímpic complex, east of Montreal.
• Read also: Boom in Montreal’s east: “We’re going to exceed billions of dollars in investments”
• Read also: Dominique Ollivier leaves her position as president of the Montreal executive committee
“You need a hotel,” insisted Alain Milette, director of development and projects at Gestion Georges Coulombe.
The promoter presented his project at the Eastern Summit held on Monday at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
“The Olympic Park is an important tourist attraction, both for Quebec and international visitors. We are talking about 5 million visitors a year. There is a critical mass for a hotel”, he explained in an interview with The newspaper.
It’s hard to explain why there are only 500 hotel rooms east of Avenue Papineau while Montreal has 19,000.
transformation
The project consists of destroying 11 of the 17 cinemas. There will still be six rooms integrated into the hotel complex, which will occupy an area of more than 1,500 square meters and 7 floors.
“There will be a large square, a large public square, with a connection to the metro”, explains the architect Sonia Gagné.
To make room, we will have to dismiss the outdoor car park near the cinema.
On the other hand, users will have access to the 4,700 parking spaces of the Olympic Park and parking spaces for bicycles will be added.
The promoter did not want to comment on the cost of the project or even on an order of magnitude.
It aims to start work in 2025, time to find funding and an operator.
The urban plan must also go through several stages before being approved by the municipality of Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
radiation
“The Starcité cinema has been there for a long time, people are attached to it. Knowing that it will be modernized, that it will be brought up to date, I see it as an opportunity for citizens”, enthused Alia Hassan-Cournol, councilor of Maisonneuve–Longue-Pointe and president of the district’s urban planning advisory committee.
He thinks the hotel will be interesting for tourists, but also for families in the neighborhood.
“It will attract festivals, possibly film premieres, to have a center of cultural influence in the east,” he declared.
