Plans are moving forward for the urban park on top of the Ville Marie tunnel.
Design firm Lemay, artist Angela Silver and SNC Lavalin won the design competition held by the city.
On Thursday, reporters got a look at the plans for the public space next to Champ-de-Mars metro called the Place des Montréalaises.
There will be a sloped cover, a forest and a meadow of perennial flowers for people to walk through.
Twenty-one women will be honoured at the site — including Jeanne Mance, executed slave Marie-Joseph Angelique, and the 14 victims of the Polytechnique massacre.
“It feels like a cocoon, even though there will be a highway below, we will feel surrounded by nature and the memory of these women,” said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante.
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“We decided to have women of different generations. We wanted to reflect that the city of Montreal belongs to everybody,” explained Dorothy Alexandre, member of the committee for the Place des Montréalaises.
The designer’s vision is to create a flexible space — one that makes the commute practical but it can also be a space where people rest and take in the artwork.
“There are going to be people from the CHUM looking for a respite, people passing through to the office, tourists, it will really be diverse,” said artist Silver.
The city says the chosen design will mean that the urban park will come in $12 million less than expected.
The current price tag is $62.4 million.
The Place des Montréalaises is expected to be completed by the year 2022.
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