Laurier Ouest shines brightly with its new winter illumination by MK Illumination.

As we embark on this new year, we’re delighted to announce some good news: the vacancy rate on Laurier Ouest continues to fall, and many new businesses will soon be opening their doors, helping to make our avenue even more lively and attractive.

Coming soon: the opening of two major restaurants – a new fashion and tableware destination. What’s more, Atelier Mélilot will open its doors this spring, offering ice cream for the summer!

For our part, we’re redoubling our efforts to enliven the avenue and increase its traffic. For 2025, we’re preparing V2 of our digital guide for cruise passengers, the rollout of the avenue’s new image with banners signed Laurier Ouest, a brand-new concept for greening the avenue during the summer, and our flagship events, which are at the heart of our annual strategy. You can look forward to the 3rd edition of Mile End en fête, a festival that continues to grow and allows residents and visitors to the neighborhood to discover its commercial offerings as well as local artists. Similarly, 2025 will see Outremont’s 150th anniversary, and Laurier Ouest will be at the heart of the celebrations to mark this landmark moment in the neighborhood’s history.

To give you an idea of what you can expect, here’s a small retrospective in images of the highlights of 2024!

In 2024, we were delighted to welcome more than a dozen new businesses, including the Oncle Lee restaurant, ranked among the most eagerly awaited openings of the year thanks to its superb rear terrace. We also saw the arrival of the new head office of the Fondation du Cancer du Sein, set up in the former Mémoria premises, and the opening of a second Iconoglace creamery at 50 avenue Laurier Ouest. The vacancy rate has fallen considerably this year, and we are continuing our efforts to ensure that available premises are well promoted and visible, while maintaining active communication with owners and agents to facilitate their introduction to future occupants.

Firstly, a large part of our efforts in 2024 was devoted to staging events designed to raise the profile of the avenue and its commercial offering among a wider clientele.

In the spring, we celebrated the merchants of Laurier Ouest with a Laurier Ouest Soirée, marking the inauguration of our digital guide for cruise passengers, produced in collaboration with Paprika and The Main. The event brought together over a hundred of the avenue’s entrepreneurs, as well as key players in the city’s commercial development, such as PME MTL, Les Clefs d’Or and Tourisme MTL.

During the summer, the 2nd edition of the Mile End en Fête festival, organized in partnership with AGAME, attracted nearly 15,000 people. We also offered a rich summer cultural program, with over 19 performances on the avenue, in collaboration with the boroughs of Plateau Mont-Royal and Outremont, as well as Grandes Oreilles. We also organized the inauguration of the new Les Portes du Temps mural at the Optical Center.

This fall, we hosted the second edition of the Triptyque de Cycles Régis, a major bicycle race in Outremont. And as part of Montreal Fashion Week, we organized a signature event: a collaborative fashion show featuring 8 boutiques on the avenue, presenting some 30 outfits to over 200 fashion industry professionals.

We ended the year on a high note with our holiday activities, presented by Félix Jasmin of Engel & Völkers, on the forecourt of Outremont’s Saint-Viateur church. Hundreds of families came out to enjoy free hot drinks and grilled meats, as well as festive entertainment and performances for young and old! Finally, we were honoured to host the Opéra de Montréal‘s Donor Appreciation Evening at the church, in recognition of the significant contribution made by Avenue merchants to the opera’s annual auction lots. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Opéra de Montréal in 2025 – stay tuned for more!

Finally, we pursued our mission of beautifying the avenue through two major initiatives: the revitalization of the Saint-Urbain sector in Saint-Laurent, and winter illumination.

In partnership with Mémoires du Mile End and Benjamin Moore, we commissioned artists Ankh One and Nicole Boyce to create a double mural on the walls of Optical Center and Lio Fratelli. Entitled Les Portes du Temps, this work explores the continuity between the history and future of Mile End, and is the result of several citizen consultations aimed at capturing the collective vision of the neighborhood.

In collaboration with Out There and Iconoglace, we also installed a placottoir, as well as an urban mister at the corner of Clark and Laurier West. To these we added our signature Laurier O chairs, designed and produced by Out There.

Finally, the second phase of our winter illumination project, carried out by MK Illumination, saw the addition of 58 new light structures on the avenue’s lampposts. This enchanting decor enhanced the holiday season, and we’re looking forward to continuing this magical atmosphere for winter 2025.

In addition to the Soirée Laurier Ouest, we launched a digital guide specially designed for cruise passengers to promote the avenue’s businesses. We also contributed to the Guide Plateau, which highlights the neighborhood’s commercial offering. We continue to offer the services of our media content agency Culte to shoot photos or videos in your institutions to promote your business or services. We also send out regular newsletters to keep you up to date on avenue news, work in progress, subsidy opportunities, permit application deadlines and borough news.

We’re also undergoing ongoing training to manage our brand-new CRM, developed by Eudonet in partnership with four other SDCs. This initiative aims to centralize the management of our relations with merchants and partners, and improve our operational efficiency.