The loss of this heritage interior is all the more troubling because, since the 1990s, the Ville de Montr\u00e9al had assured us that its preservation was one of the conditions attached to the development agreement authorizing the office tower built in part above the former bank. Over the years, the interior had been carefully restored and sensitively adapted to accommodate new commercial uses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Ville de Montr\u00e9al (arrondissement de Ville-Marie) met with us promptly and explained that the new retail project had been approved in accordance with the applicable regulations, and that no record could be found of the conservation commitments made in the 1990s. As for the tenant, it stated that it had received no indication that this 1920s interior presented any heritage issues, either from the real estate brokers involved in the transaction or from its architects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the one hand, this demolition demonstrates the need to move beyond vague commitments when it comes to recognizing and protecting heritage, particularly commercial interiors, and to adopt precautionary principles, if not binding regulations. On the other hand, it reveals that, even among professionals working within respected firms, there remains a lack of awareness\u2014or perhaps indifference\u2014toward heritage interiors, and possibly even a willful blindness in favour of corporate standards or fashionable designs that could just as easily be implemented anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2011, the Assembl\u00e9e nationale du Qu\u00e9bec granted municipalities certain powers to protect heritage interiors, responding to requests that the Ville de Montr\u00e9al had been making since 1987. With the exception of a rare case in Westmount, these powers have remained largely unused, particularly by the Ville de Montr\u00e9al. Just steps away from the Eaton 9e, a heritage interior that was preserved and brilliantly rehabilitated, the interior demolition at 777 Sainte-Catherine West must not go unanswered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
H\u00e9ritage Montr\u00e9al therefore calls on the Ville de Montr\u00e9al to mandate its Conseil du patrimoine de Montr\u00e9al to review this specific case and identify effective measures to prevent similar losses, ensure that heritage interiors are properly considered in the planning and evaluation of development projects, and promote their conservation, enhancement and adaptive reuse.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Following alerts received in early 2026, H\u00e9ritage Montr\u00e9al sought to understand how the remarkable interior of the former Banque d\u2019\u00e9pargne de la cit\u00e9 et du district de Montr\u00e9al, at the corner of Sainte-Catherine West and McGill College, had been completely demolished to make way for a sportswear store. We met with representatives of the arrondissement [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n