New master plan to transform former NFB head office in Montreal into housing
Posted June 19, 2025 4:08 pm.
Last Updated June 19, 2025 5:36 pm.
Canada Lands Company plans to tackle Montreal’s housing crisis with their new master plan for the redevelopment of the former National Film Board (NFB) head office in the Saint-Laurent borough.
The projects’ main objectives include addressing the housing crisis by adding affordable and market housing, encouraging economic development and artistic use of the site, and creating a living environment that’s open to the community and its needs.
This comes after the announcement from the Canadian government last year, a program for builders called the Canada Public Land Bank.
The plan is about partnering with the housing sector and communities to build homes on sites — suitable for housing across the federal department.
The site will consist of a commercial and office hub that represent 35 per cent of the site’s area, a residential hub with 700 housing units—half of which will be off-market—and an arts and culture hub. The Foley Room, main theatre, and their studio are the main components of this hub.
“All of the projects — when we say they’re affordable housing or non-market housing, they have to meet the standards of the city of Montreal and of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in terms of affordability standards,” explained Christopher Sweetnam Holmes, senior director of real estate in Quebec for the Canada Lands Company.
“I think the goal is to always have a mix to have some units that are really targeting very low-income people who don’t have a lot of options and also to have housing that targets like, people who are maybe lower middle class but they can’t afford housing because it’s gotten so expensive. So we do try to have a range of housing types in there.”
In their model for sustainable development; 80 per cent of existing buildings will be reused — reducing the carbon footprint.
A carbon-neutral district energy system will be implemented, and LEED certifications will be pursued for all buildings — over 8,860 square meters of new parks and green areas will be built as well, including a new street that will connect to Carré Benoit, connecting ties between neighbourhoods.
Holmes estimates spending tens of millions of dollars on the transformation of the NFB site.
Only steps from the future Côte-de-Liesse REM station, it’ll be equivalent to six football fields.
“Finding a way to transform this site and make it a community that’s still anchored in the past, I think is what’s really unique,” Holmes said.
