Featured image credit: jgreenberg/CC BY-SA 2.0/Edited for size
The operator of Montreal’s Olympic Stadium has issued a notice of intent to sign a contract with the Groupe Pomerleau-Canam consortium, with a view to delivering a new roof and technical ring for the facility.
Parc Olympique has said it will cancel a call for proposals in favour of partnering with Groupe Pomerleau-Canam to determine the budget that would be required to replace the roof and the technical ring of the 56,000-capacity stadium.
Parc Olympique said that the decision takes into account the current context of the project, which is “radically different” from the one that was approved almost six years ago. It is hoped that a business case can be completed by the end of the autumn before being submitted to the provincial government in Quebec, which owns the venue.
Michel Labrecque, president and chief executive of Parc Olympique, said: “This whole process was done in accordance with the act respecting contracting by public bodies, under the supervision of an independent auditor and in consultation with the Minister of Tourism and the society of Québécoise infrastructure.
“This new step allows the project to continue to be developed in the best public interest. Given the subsequent steps, in particular the approval of the business case by the Council of Ministers, no further comment will be made on this notice of intent.”
The stadium opened in 1976 for Montreal’s staging of that year’s summer Olympic Games. The project was first approved at a budget of C$250m (£147m/€172m/$189m) by the Quebec Government back in 2017.
Work was initially due to be completed in 2022, but in 2019 it was decided that 2024 would be a more realistic delivery date. However in February 2022, it emerged that renovations had been delayed once more, with neither the government nor Parc Olympique proposing a new date for completion.
Following the latest development, no timeline has been set for when the roof could be fitted, but more information is likely to emerge following the completion of the business case.
The current 24-year-old Kevlar roof is said to have accumulated more than 16,000 tears since installation. As a result, events cannot be held in the stadium if the weather forecast calls for more than three centimetres of snow or three millimetres of sleet.
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