The Starcité cinema could be converted into a 200-room hotel as early as 2025, integrated into the Olympic Park site in eastern Montreal.
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“You need a hotel,” emphasized Alain Milette, head of development and projects at Gestion Georges Coulombe.
The organizer presented his project at the Eastern Summit, which took place on Monday at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.
“The Olympic Park is an important tourist attraction, both for visitors from Quebec and abroad. We are talking about 5 million visitors per year. “There is a critical mass for a hotel,” he explained in an interview with Le Journal.
It’s hard to explain why there are only 500 hotel rooms east of Papineau Avenue while there are 19,000 in Montreal.
transformation
The project calls for the destruction of 11 of the 17 cinemas. Six rooms will continue to be integrated into the hotel complex, which will cover an area of more than 1,500 square meters and 7 floors.
“There will be a large square, a large public square, with access to the subway,” explains architect Sonia Gagné.
To make space, we have to say goodbye to the outdoor parking spaces near the cinema.
On the other hand, users have access to the 4,700 parking spaces in the Olympic Park and there are also bicycle parking spaces.
The project sponsor did not want to comment on the costs of the project or even its size.
The goal is to start work in 2025, find time, financing and an operator.
The city plan must also go through several phases before it is approved by the municipality of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
radiation
“The Starcité cinema has been around for a long time and people are connected to it. “Knowing that it will be modernized and brought up to date, I see it as an opportunity for the citizens,” said Alia Hassan-Cournol, city councilor in Maisonneuve-Longue-Pointe and president of the district’s urban planning advisory committee.
She believes the hotel will be of interest to tourists but also to families in the neighborhood.
“It will be possible to attract festivals and possibly film premieres to create a center of cultural influence in the East,” she explained.