Kickoff done to build $28.3-million Montreal soccer centre

PATRICIA WILLIAMS

staff writer

Ground is expected to be broken by the end of next year on a new indoor soccer centre at the Saint-Michel Environmental Complex in Montreal, one of the city’s largest parks.

The winning concept for the $28.3 million project was submitted by a joint venture of Montreal-based Saucier + Perrotte and Hughes Condon Marler Architects of Vancouver. The City of Montreal is targeting LEED Gold for the centre, to be constructed on the site of the former Miron limestone quarry. The design concept incorporates best practices in sustainable development.

The facility will include one full-size soccer pitch that can be subdivided into smaller surfaces, locker rooms, a fitness and physiotherapy room, and event, restaurant and family rest areas.

The new indoor soccer centre will include one full-sized soccer pitch that can be subdivided into smaller surfaces.

The city said the roof will call to mind a mineral stratum “eloquently heralding the structure as seen from Avenue Papineau.

“The volumes of the building will rise like a series of luminous crystals among the trees in the wooded embankment bordering the avenue, lending a human scale to the project to observers in the residential neighbourhood on the other side of Papineau and inviting citizens to explore the park.”

The centre will also house the offices of the Association regionale de soccer Montreal Concordia.

In an interview, Saucier + Perrotte partner Gilles Saucier said a key element is the relationship of the centre to the “extraordinary” park. Former landfill sites progressively are being developed into parkland.

“The building works as much as a pavilion as a sports facility,” Saucier said.

He said attention will need to be paid “to all kinds of small details” in order to achieve LEED Gold. That includes orientation of the building as well as choice of materials.

A general contractor will be retained to construct the facility. The project team includes mechanical-electrical consulting engineers Bouthillette Parizeau and structural engineers Nicolet, Chartrand, Knoll. Landscape architects are Williams, Asselin, Ackaoui & Associates Inc.

Saucier + Perrotte and Hughes Condon Marler have collaborated previously on projects in both Quebec and British Columbia. The firms won an Award of Excellence in Canadian Architect magazine’s 2011 awards for the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences/Centre for Drug Research and Development building in Vancouver.

“It’s a very successful joint venture,” Saucier said. “We like to work together.”

The city of Montreal is investing $15.6 million in the new indoor soccer centre while the governments of Canada and Quebec are contributing another $12.7 million through the Building Canada Fund-Quebec.

The winning design was chosen in an architectural competition supported by the Montreal UNESCO city of design program, an initiative of the Ville de Montreal bureau du design and the UNESCO chair in landscape and environmental design at the Universite de Montreal.

Montreal mayor Gerald Tremblay said the long-awaited project will provide Montrealers with access to a sports centre “that is not only functional but boasts a modern design meeting the highest standards of quality.”