The Canal Today

In the last few years, the Lachine Canal has developed into recreational destination for people seeking a quiet continuous parkland, ideal for cyclists and others. The various governments have contributed the required funds which now provide for the cycle paths, park benches, trees, and many refreshment stops which are often located in refurbished train cabooses. Many of the building fronting on the Canal have been converted into residential condominiums or other friendly uses. This trend continues today and will eventually replace all the remaining industrial properties located along the shores of the Canal. Other loft buildings, mostly for artists have replaced many of the former industrial buildings. At present more than 2,000,000 square feet has been converted to lofts along the Lachine Canal.

Many discussions continue between interest groups, governments and property owners about the future of the canal. All are intent on continuing the trend away from industrial toward friendly uses. Recently at a meeting of these groups a project to build a tourist train that would travel alongside the Canal was put forward and is now being studied for its feasibility.

Other points of interest along the Canal include many restaurants (including the famous Magnan's and Ancre D'Or), Marche Atwater Market and the Lachine Harbour for pleasure boats.

If you have not visited the Lachine Canal lately, you may be in for a surprise. The lifestyle is relaxing and pleasant.

Other Amenities

A few feet away from Complexe Dompark is the Gadbois Recreation Complexe featuring an indoor pool, two indoor hockey arenas, several racquetball courts and gymnasiums, weight training facilities, outdoor tennis courts, a soccer field and a baseball park. This facility is operated by the City of Montreal and most activities are either free or very inexpensive.

The need for large expansive, high ceiling spaces in which an artist could create oversize academic and military paintings is widely considered the ancestor to today's commercial loft. These artist ateliers flourished in Paris, London and New York City at the turn of the century.

In New York City, large architectural firms soon followed the artist community as early tenants of loft buildings and the true commercial loft was born.

Of course these ateliers and studios were originally built mainly for industrial occupants of all sorts. Unlike todays boxlike industrial buildings, the industrial buildings of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century were built according to specific industrial need and purpose. It is this original purpose that therefore dictated the design of the building.

Some simple principles were usually observed. Often heavy machinery was located on the ground floor while lighter activities occupied the upper floors. The location of an oppressive workplace was usually located on the upper floors which ironically are now the most sought after for today's commercial lofts.

How a building laid out was firstly designed and built around the location of shipping and receiving areas. Often industrial buildings would provide for many types of transportation accesses for the delivery of materials and the export of product. No means of transportation was ignored, everything from ships and barges to freight trains and trucks to horse drawn carts or human distributors on foot was intergraded.

Once inside the bulding an area was required for storage of raw materials. The ability to stack raw material and finished product would impact on ceiling height. Finally, the general manufacturing process played a major role in the final design of an industrial building.

The height of a given building was often determined by land cost relative to the cost of building upward. Since most industrial processes require large labour pools the best location for an industrial building was adjacent a working class neighbourhood. As a result, the builder of a industrial building would be in competition against both other industrial builders and residential developers for vacant land. The builder would often build upward rather than outward. Especially if the industrial process permitted easy integration of a multi story property with the manufacturing process. In London this was the Dockland and Covent Garden. In New York areas such as SoHo and in Montreal this was along the Lachine Canal.

The History of Our Buildings

As far back as 1875 the site where Complexe Dompark exist was owned by Mont Royal Spinning Co. which later became apart of Dominion Textile. The location of the Mont Royal Spinning is understood by reading "The history of the Lachine Canal". Following the closing of the canal, Dominion Textile continued it's operations as usual until 1987 when the property was sold to Canderel Properties. Caneral wanted to develop the site for industrial tenants but were unable to succeed.

In 1995, the present owners purchased the half empty building with the intention of developing highend commercial lofts for business. At the time many observers felt this was an impossible task.

The people of Complexe du Canal Lachine know lofts. Located near Atwater market on the historic Lachine Canal, Complexe du Canal Lachine is located in the former Simmons mattress factory and comprises over 320,000 square feet of building. In 1993, when the present owners purchase the building it was in an abandoned half-finished state. After extensive restoration and upgrade Complexe du Canal Lachine with over 150 commercial lofts, is Montreal's premier loft building. Today, building services are second to none while continuious upgrades are still being implemented.

To ensure complete service to the tenants, the Complexe's fultime staff include several maintenace persons, two cleaning persons as well as and an off hour security guard and 24 hour emergency services.

Have you visited the Lachine Canal lately? Now a parkland, this waterway was once the most important transportation route serving the turn of the century Montreal.

In the seventeenth century, Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve founded Montreal. The site was selected for the primary reason that the Lachine rapids prevented boats from traveling further up the St-Laurence river and thus stopping the most common and efficient method of transportation.

Earlier, in 1611, the explorer Samuel de Champlain who also had been stopped by the rapids, had identified the possibility of a canal as a by- pass to this natural obstacle. On June 13,1689 construction was begun by the Montreal Sulpicians on a 2 km canal to support their monopoly on flour-milling. Many setbacks occured from Indian raids to financial problems and project redesign. It was not until an American invaison in 1775 and the realization and significance of the canal as a military project, was the canal completed in 1779. By this time New France was now a British colony. Nevertheless, this early canal project failed to provide a true by-pass to the rapids.

By 1825 Montreal had grown into a major North American city with multiple needs for a truly navigational canal. Finally on August 24,1824 the Lachine Canal was opened for navigation.

In 1850 a decision was taken to lease water intakes to industrial plants who would set up along the canal. These intakes served to supply water or water for steeam or water for hydro-electricty (cheap water power caused by the waterfalls of the locks along the canal). Many companies spang up. The first being Goudie-Ogilvie flour mill and later Dominion Textile (Complexe Dompark) and the Simmons Bedding (Complexe du Canal Lachine) . The area around the canal naturally developed into residential communities to provide housing for the labour force which was employed by the many factories along the canal.

For more than 100 years the Lachine Canal was the heart of Montreals industrial community. The industries along its shore represented good employment and hope for thousand new Canadians. It wasn`t until the inauguartion of the St-Laurance Seaway in 1959 did industry begin to abbandon the Lachine Canal and change its role from industry to the parkland of today.