Maison Manuvie Site Has Zero Archeological Potential
Ivanhoé Cambridge said this week it's resuming construction on Montreal office tower Maison Manuvie after a study of the building site found an “inexistence of archeological potential.” Last month, Ivanhoé voluntarily suspended preliminary excavation work at 900 de Maisonneuve West—a 27-storey, 486k SF tower anchored by Manulife, which co-owns the LEED Gold-seeking building with Ivanhoé—when citizens expressed concerns about the site’s archaeological potential.
While Ivanhoé had all construction approvals in place, and government maps showed the property was outside any designated archeological zone, it paid for a site assessment, which concluded that surface soils that could conceal archaeological elements are “clearly not there,” likely having been destroyed during building construction and infrastructure development in previous centuries. The report has been posted to Ivanhoé’s website “in a spirit of transparency.” Maison Manuvie is slated for a 2017 completion.
