Mile End residents angry that developers are pushing out indie stores These businesses are closing not because they re not working, but because they have a landlord who is raising the rent in unreasonable fashion.
Author of the article: Brendan Kelly • Montreal Gazette
Publishing date: Mar 04, 2021 • March 4, 2021 • 4 minute read • Projet Montréal councillor Richard Ryan has lived in the Mile End for 35 years and currently lives just around the corner from the S.W. Welch bookstore, which will probably have to move because of a huge hike in rent.. Photo by Pierre Obendrauf /Montreal Gazette
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In one corner, you have a community up in arms that mom-and-pop businesses on St-Viateur St. are being forced out by exorbitant rent increases. In the other corner is one of the city’s leading real-estate developers that owns several buildings on the fabled Mile End artery and insists his group is just trying to make a living in a difficu
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There’s a David versus Goliath battle going in the heart of Mile End, and it looks like Goliath has the upper hand in this all-too-familiar tale of gentrification in a hot hip neighbourhood.
Goliath in this case is Montreal real-estate firm Shiller-Lavy Realties, which owns several buildings on St-Viateur St., and the underdog fighting for its life is the venerable independent bookstore S. W. Welch. The used bookstore is currently paying $2,000 a month in rent and owner Stephen Welch last week told Schiller-Lavy, his landlord, that he could afford to pay about 25 per cent more when the new lease would start in August.