I decided to pay a visit to the area around the Bell Centre that is undergoing a major transformation with the construction of 4 tall condo apartment buildings and an office tower.

This is the first of what will likely be many updates since my first visit back in July that I plan doing to record the development of this area.

With only 4 month’s having passed since my last visit, not a great deal has changed to the sites along rue de la Montagne between avenue des Canadiens de Montréal and boulevard René-Lévesque, but the Deloitte Tower on rue Saint Antoine is beginning to rise.

The Deloitte Tower

The Deloitte Tower is Montreal’s first new privately owned and financed commercial office tower to be built since 1992. The top 8 floors of the 26-storey tower when completed in the summer 2015 will be Rio Tinto Alcan Zinc’s new headquarters.

Deloitte Tower construction site
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Deloitte Tower construction site-view south
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Deloitte Tower construction site-view east
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Deloitte Tower construction site-view on rue Saint Antoine
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Deloitte Tower construction site-view from rue Peel
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I took a shot of what I believe will be the site of the new Centennial Plaza that was moved from the west side of the Bell Centre where the new Tour des Canadiens will be located.

Site of new Centennial Plaza
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I’m sure many (particularly those fans who purchased their centennial bricks) can’t wait to see the Plaza with the great statues by Marc André J Fortier and all the monuments celebrating the key moments and player’s in the teams history.

As a side note, I was particularly honoured that Marc André liked my recent pictures of his wonderful English Pug and French Poodle sculptures at Place d’Armes and included them in his website gallery 🙂

Tour des Canadiens

They are still excavating at the site of where the 50-storey high Tour des Canadiens tower will be, so not a big change from the shots I took in July from the same vantage point at the top of the temporary staircase at Lucien l’Allier train station on rue de la Montagne .

Tour des Canadiens construction site
ISO 200 – 10mm – f6.3 – 1/1000 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

Roccabella Condos and L’Avenue Condos

Similarly, excavation work is still being conducted at the site of where the twin Roccabella Condo towers will emerge. The first tower is due to be completed in 2015.

It doesn’t look like work on L’Avenue Condo project has started yet, although I read that the supermarket chain Provigo has signed on as a key tennant, so condo owners at least won’t have far to go for their food shopping.

The first shot of the site (a former carpark), shows the complete site, where L’Avenue will be in the foreground and the Roccabella Condo’s where the crane is.

Roccabella Condos and L’Avenue Condos construction site
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Another shot, looking from the corner of boulevard René-Lévesque and rue de la Montagne.

Roccabella Condos construction site
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I always enjoy taking a look (and photographing) the deep excavations of construction sites. Unfortunately all the viewing windows are meshed over and I was only able to find a small gap in one corner of the wall protecting the site to get a shot.

Roccabella Condos construction site
ISO 200 – 10mm – f9 – 1/250 sec (-2ev/0/+2ev)

I look forward to following the construction development in this area over the coming years and will likely visit again in early 2014 and share an update on how it is proceeding.

Thanks for stopping by. Until next time.

– Martin

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