The Cité du Multimédia is a neighborhood in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, Canada, located between

Old Montreal Old Montreal (French: ''Vieux-Montréal'') is a historic neighbourhood within the municipality of Montreal in the province of Quebec, Canada. Home to the Old Port of Montreal, the neighbourhood is bordered on the west by McGill Street, on th ...

Griffintown Griffintown is a historic neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec, southwest of downtown. The area existed as a functional neighbourhood from the 1820s until the 1960s, and was mainly populated by Irish immigrants and their descendants. Mostly depopulate ...

and

Downtown Montreal Downtown Montreal ( French: ''Centre-Ville de Montréal'') is the central business district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The district is situated on the southernmost slope of Mount Royal, and occupies the western portion of the borough of Vil ...

. The neighborhood is the result of a vast real-estate project launched by the Quebec government in the late 1990s which redeveloped abandoned nineteenth century industrial buildings into a

business cluster A business cluster is a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions in a particular field. Clusters are considered to increase the productivity with which companies can compete, nationally and glo ...

for

information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...

companies. Groupe Cardinal Hardy and

Groupe Provencher & Roy architectes A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation. Air and aviation groups The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches ...

collaborated on the district's

urban design Urban design is an approach to the design of buildings and the spaces between them that focuses on specific design processes and outcomes. In addition to designing and shaping the physical features of towns, cities, and regional spaces, urban de ...

History

The Société de Développement de Montréal possessed land holdings dating back to the Doré administration's failed Quartier des Récluses initiative, in which lands were bought by the

SIMPA The International Secretariat of the Masonic Adogmatic Powers (ISMAP) (French: ''Secrétariat international Maçonnique des Puissances Adogmatiques'' (SIMPA)) was an international organization of Masonic jurisdictions of Freemasonry, masonic lodges. ...

to make way for the project. In exchange for handing this over, the SDM gained a minority stake in a joint venture with the real estate arms of the

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ; ) is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in Quebec. CDPQ was founded in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly, under the go ...

(CDPQ) and the FTQ Fonds de Solidarité to fund the construction of the Cité, which occurred in eight phases, with additional phases having been planned. The

Parti Québécois The Parti Québécois (; ; PQ) is a sovereignist and social democratic provincial political party in Quebec, Canada. The PQ advocates national sovereignty for Quebec involving independence of the province of Quebec from Canada and establishin ...

Bouchard Government of Québec then gave payroll tax credits to employers for moving to the new Cité du Multimédia buildings. After the bursting of the

dot-com bubble The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

, and the elimination of tax incentives for information technology jobs in the district by the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

government of

Jean Charest John James "Jean" Charest (; born June 24, 1958) is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the 29th premier of Quebec from 2003 to 2012 and the fifth deputy prime minister of Canada in 1993. Charest was elected to the House of ...

in 2003, phase 9 and others were cancelled, and the structures were sold by the joint venture to the private sector.

Economy

Many high-tech companies are still located in the area, while phase 8 is occupied by the municipal government. The property values in this part of Montreal are very high. The neighbourhood has 6,000 workers, and an average salary of $73,000 per year. This figure is almost 25% above Montréal's average.

Controversy

Then-finance minister

Bernard Landry Bernard Landry (; March 9, 1937 – November 6, 2018) was a Canadian politician who served as the 28th premier of Quebec from 2001 to 2003. A member of the Parti Québécois (PQ), he led the party from 2001 to 2005, also serving as the leader o ...

had been criticized by members of Montreal's real-estate community and some high-tech entrepreneurs when Finance Ministry programs enticed companies to relocate to Cité Multimédia and the

Cité du commerce électronique E-Commerce Place (french: Cité du commerce électronique) (CCE) is an office complex of two towers located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located on René Lévesque Boulevard, René-Lévesque Boulevard West between Mountain Street and Lucien L ...

downtown in order to receive tax assistance. In response, Landry announced the creation of CDTIs located in mid-sized cities throughout

, and later the installation of technology clusters in rural areas, such as the Technoparc Rolland in Sainte-Adèle, Quebec. The Cité du Multimédia was also put under investigation in the context of the Charbonneau commission inquiries.

References

External links

Allied Properties REIT - Cité Multimedia
*
Montrealbits.com: Cité Multimedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cite du Multimedia Neighbourhoods in Montreal High-technology business districts in Canada Ville-Marie, Montreal