After months of approvals and hard work by Council, staff and the developers, it appears as if the Cavendish Mall redevelopment is approaching the actual "redevelopment" stage. As of today, the access to the Mall from Kildare Road will be closed as the construction of new roads and underground services throughout the new housing project will be commencing in the coming days.
Preliminary timelines estimate this phase of construction taking approximately three months. During infrastructure construction, access to the Mall will be limited to the Mackle and Cavendish entrances. The Cavendish entrance across from Côte Saint-luc City Hall will also be closed towards the end of this process as it will be reconfigured with new sidewalks, pavement, lighting, etc. eventually continuing through as "The Avenue."
As our Urban Planning Manager Jeff Davey summed up quite accurately, "this is an exciting time for our city, but will be difficult on some esidents. We are doing everything we can to ensure the nuisances of large scale construction are kept to a minimum and ask everyone to be patient as the end result will have been worth the wait."
I have been in communications with the tenants of Kildare Towers, located just next to the Kellert entrance of the Mall. Many of these people are frail and elderly. They depended upon close entrance to the Mall. When the demolition of the old facility began, a special path was made in order for them to walk to the center entrance near the food court. Now that has been cut off and they have to make their way up Kildare and down Cavendish. It is a difficult commute and will be worse in the winter. I spoke to the building's owner, Howard Szalavetz about it. Can we do anything for these people? Regrettably for them we cannot do anything about the access as this is now an active construction zone.
For anyone who has not seen the video of what the Mall housing development will ultimately look like take a look:
