Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of the massive CDPQ public pension fund, plans to remake one of Montreal’s most emblematic street corners by adding 13 floors above the three-storey Place Montreal Trust shopping centre.

The proposed tower would stretch the 160 feet of the Place Montreal Trust shopping centre along Ste. Catherine Street between Mansfield and McGill College Avenue. The mall would continue as usual through the construction, which would create anywhere from 225,000 to 275,000 square feet above the retail space, depending on final design.

Ivanhoé Cambridge has yet to decide whether the space will contain residential units, hotel rooms or even offices. No new parking spaces would be added to the stock currently available in the structure.

The company breezed through an early step of the municipal approval process on Dec. 5, as a committee of professionals known as a CCU voted to approve the proposed 215-foot-tall structure. Ivanhoé Cambridge will now present the plan at a public meeting on Jan. 24 and hopes to get final approval by elected officials some time in March.

Assuming municipal authorities green light the project, it will then undergo a site approval process, which can take one to two years. Construction could take another two to three years, which means the timeline for completion would be around 2027 or 2029.

Though the final purpose of the space remains to be determined, the developers consider one category to be more likely than others. “Right now, it probably has a higher possibility of residential use but the step we are now in is securing density and zoning rights,” said Peter Tragoulias, Ivanhoé Cambridge’s vice president of development, told CoStar News in an interview.

“We met with the city early on before submitting this just to get the general guidelines of the urban architectural principles that we have to adhere to, such as setback rules and height restrictions,” said Tragoulias. “If we decided to do a deeper building or to do a different layout, we still have that flexibility. What is clear now is the heights. On Ste. Catherine, it is slightly lower than the height on McGill College Avenue.”

Place Montreal Trust sits in the heart of downtown on Ste. Catherine Street, which is Montreal’s best-known and most-traveled retail strip. The mall sits at the corner of McGill College Avenue where pedestrians frequently stop to admire views to Mount Royal towering over the cityscape, a vista that was created in the 1980s after several buildings were demolished to allow the street to be widened.

The current structure at Place Montreal Trust was designed by Toronto architect Eb Zeidler, whose other building designs across Canada include the Eaton Centre in Toronto and Ontario Place.

The team in charge of the new building includes the Montreal firm of Daoust Lestage handling the architectural design while Tetra Tech will take on the rezoning tasks, with other companies expected to also contribute at a later stage.

The renderings submitted to the city represent an early-stage proposal and Tragoulias said that the team has not yet committed to any firm decisions on the architectural style of the project.

Place Montreal Trust sits atop some of the coveted sections of Montreal’s buzzing underground tunnel network that spans dozens of kilometres and contains retail outlets and access to metro stations and office buildings. The property is located near the McGill metro station and a short distance from the downtown hub of the new REM train transit system.

“It’s such a key location, right on St. Catherine Street. It’s adjacent to the new REM station, probably the busiest drop-off site for the new rail system, which will go to the airport. There will be demand for any type of usage, so that is why we want to maintain flexibility for office or rental,” said Tragoulias.

Few residential units are currently connected to Montreal’s underground pathways. They include condos at the Cours Mont Royal and will also include a recently announced project at the southern end of the underground city network.

Ivanhoé Cambridge is led by CEO Nathalie Palladitcheff and holds interests in 1,500 buildings and has about CA$77 billion in real estate assets, according to its website. The Place Montreal Trust project will be Ivanhoé Cambridge's final and most ambitious of four recent upgrades to its landmark downtown Montreal properties, following work at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Place Ville Marie and Eaton Centre shopping mall.

Ivanhoe Cambridge has also recently expressed an interest in adding density to several regional shopping mall properties in its portfolio, as a representative told CoStar News in a separate interview.

Here are the renderings the company submitted to the city: