With foot traffic in downtown Gatineau showing the biggest decline in Canada during the pandemic, Brigil VP Jessy Desjardins believes his firm can play a big part in reversing that trend over the next decade.
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With foot traffic in downtown Gatineau showing the biggest decline in Canada during the pandemic, Jessy Desjardins believes his firm can play a big part in reversing that trend over the next decade.
“A lot of businesses that we’re in contact with are saying we need to do something,” says Desjardins, the vice-president of development at Gatineau-based real estate firm Brigil. “It’s urgent. We really need to do something as a community to help our downtown core.”
This week, Brigil announced it was starting construction on a 10-storey, 110-unit apartment complex at 210 Papineau St., a few blocks north of the Canadian Museum of History near the heart of downtown Gatineau.
Desjardins says the rental project will feature a variety of units, including 20 three-bedroom apartments, in a bid to encourage new residents – especially young families attracted to its proximity to schools and public transit – to help breathe new life into a district that was hollowed out when federal employees shifted en masse to working from home during the pandemic.
The remote work trend has dealt a serious blow to Gatineau’s core, which relies heavily on civil servants to drive its economy.
According to a study released earlier this month by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, commuter cellphone data from Statistics Canada and research firm Environics Analytics showed that foot traffic in downtown Gatineau was down nearly 75 per cent in September compared with January 2020 – the biggest drop of any of the 55 cities surveyed.
The findings come as no surprise to Desjardins.
“I think it’s obvious that since the government workers went home, there’s been a decline,” he says. “We believe (Gatineau) has so much potential. It’s just a matter of building some quality housing to accommodate the need for people that want to (live) downtown.”
The Papineau Street site is now occupied by a pair of aging houses. Brigil plans to reuse as much of the material from the buildings as possible, including the wood framing, with a goal of diverting almost a quarter of the refuse that would normally end up in a landfill.
It’s the latest in a series of development projects the Gatineau company is planning as part of an ongoing effort to change the face of its hometown’s central hub while preserving key heritage elements.
Last year, Brigil purchased a 1.75-acre parcel of land at 35 Laurier St., just west of the history museum, and said it would invest up to $1 billion to redevelop the property. The site includes the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel and Conference Centre and the former Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Presbytery, a five-storey heritage building that now houses a conference centre for the hotel that the builder intends to preserve.
Brigil has asked seven architecture firms from Ottawa-Gatineau, Montreal and Toronto to submit concepts for a new development that would occupy a parking lot beside the hotel. Calling the site “the entrance to Gatineau,” Desjardins says Brigil is committed to working with the surrounding community to come up with a plan that residents will support.
While current zoning rules allow for building heights of up to 30 storeys on the property, Desjardins says it’s too early to predict whether a highrise will be part of the development.
“Everything is on the drawing (board) right now,” he says. “We don’t want to speculate on anything. It’s such a pivotal site for Gatineau that we want to take our time and do it right. We really want to make it shine.”
In 2015, Brigil made headlines when it unveiled plans for two mixed-use condo and hotel towers just down the street from 35 Laurier across from the museum. The proposal, called Place des Peuples, was designed by renowned architect Richard Cardinal and featured 35- and 55-storey highrises with an underground link to the museum.
However, the $400-million plan sparked an outcry from opponents who argued the proposed buildings were too tall and didn’t fit the character of surrounding streets. In 2018, Gatineau city council chose to designate the area a heritage district with a three-storey limit on all new development, effectively killing the project.
Desjardins says the company is still hoping to redevelop the property in the future, but has put those plans “on the back burner” while it focuses on 35 Laurier and other projects.
“We’re going to be very patient,” he says.
In the meantime, Desjardins says Brigil is working on plans to “animate” the site. They include opening a new restaurant in a century-old, two-storey brick building at 69 Laurier St. that once housed Café Henry Burger, an iconic eatery that closed in 2006.
The developer is also partnering with other entrepreneurs to convert a former auto garage and commercial building at nearby 61 Laurier into a “new concept” that will be unveiled next summer, Desjardins says.
“The people behind the concept are very talented and have a lot of experience,” he explains. “It’s going to be something very interesting and people should really keep an eye out. It’s going to be fun.”
