Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest)

The portrait

Living in Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest)

On rue Saint-Alexandre in the morning, people stop at Paper Hill for coffee, in a building that nods to the printing houses and newspapers that once worked here. According to Centris, this is where the line runs: west of the street, Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest); east of it, Ville-Marie (Centre), described on its own page.

A few blocks away, rue Mayor shifts gear. Bar Furco sits in a former fur warehouse and Café Parvis, close by, serves coffee, meals and work tables. On rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, Time Out Market, a chefs' food hall with about fifteen counters, takes up part of the Eaton Centre, and the redesigned Phillips Square lines up seven water jets. At lunch, you eat at Time Out Market; in the evening, you drop in at Bar Furco.

Here, you walk. Square-Victoria–OACI station, on the Orange line, serves the sector, and the Underground City links several towers, shopping galleries and stations. Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest) is a sector of Centris's map, not an official neighbourhood of the City.

History of Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest)

Downtown slid west along rue Sainte-Catherine, where department stores replaced the bourgeois houses: Morgan, Birks, Ogilvy, Simpson, Eaton. Garment workshops, printers and warehouses settled close by, rue Saint-Alexandre in particular, nicknamed Paper Hill.

In 1962, Place Ville Marie, built farther west over the Canadian National rail trench, launched the Underground City. It now runs about 32 km of tunnels.

What the walls kept

The three buildings we follow do not tell the same story. Unity 1, at 454 rue De La Gauchetière Ouest, is a hard loft in a century-old building whose concrete structure remains exposed, according to ArchDaily. Unity 2, at 445 avenue Viger Ouest, is a soft loft of 85 units, of more recent construction. Les Lofts du 1200 St-Alexandre are on rue Saint-Alexandre, on the west side.

What these addresses share is the essential: a location west of rue Saint-Alexandre, with Chinatown and Old Montréal right next door.

Every property has a story. Here, it is written between a printers' house of the past and a century-old building. Our job is to help you find the one that becomes yours. Olivier Mailloux and Amélie Flanagan, real estate brokers, work with buyers and sellers in Ville-Marie (Centre-Ouest) and across Montréal.