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<\/p>\nMontreal officials say they finally have a solution for a historic theatre that has sat abandoned for three decades, and after years of proposals ranging from art and retail to social and luxury housing, the plan is to tear it down.<\/p>\n
But not the whole thing.<\/p>\n
The C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2013Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce borough says it will preserve the iconic neo-Egyptian fa\u00e7ade of the Empress Theatre, while demolishing much of the interior structure as part of a phased redevelopment project.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll see, by next year,\u00a0 in 2027, we will be starting deconstruction of this theatre,\u201d said CDN\u2014NDG borough mayor St\u00e9phanie Valenzuela.<\/p>\n
Montreal has owned the property since 1999, but the Empress first opened in 1928. Known for its rare Egyptian Revival style, it operated as a burlesque theatre, a caf\u00e9-theatre and, most recently, Cinema V, which some NDGers still call it to this day.<\/p>\n
A fire in 1992 left the building gutted. It\u2019s been boarded up ever since, the interior largely untouched with dilapidated rows of old seating still waiting for movie lovers to stop by.<\/p>\n
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(Submitted by CDN-NDG)<\/p>\n
“Cinema V was like the cultural spot where you would meet your friends, where you’d go to see a movie and then go out clubbing afterwards,” former member of the Empress Cultural Centre community group, Paul Scriver, told CBC in 2024.<\/p>\n
That year, the City of Montreal announced<\/a> it was going to sell the building for mixed-use development.<\/p>\n Many years before that, the Cinema NDG project was looking to raise millions for a resurrection project that failed by 2018. In 2020<\/a>, the borough announced it would be converted into social housing, and a community hall.<\/p>\n The C\u00f4te-des-Neiges\u2013Notre-Dame-de-Gr\u00e2ce borough says it will keep the neo-Egyptian fa\u00e7ade of the Empress Theatre, on Sherbrooke Street, in place, and leave outdoor space for activities. (Submitted by CDN-NDG)<\/p>\n All that came long after the Empress Cultural Centre made its own grassroot effort to resuscitate the theatre with community support. <\/p>\n The goal was to create cultural spaces with businesses on the ground floor. However, roughly 16 years ago, the community group also made it clear that preservation work on the structure was desperately needed to prevent further water infiltration.<\/p>\n Now, the borough says technical studies found the structure was too deteriorated for full preservation.<\/p>\n (Wikicommons)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/9286cbd91bf2b7fd7a844f403e44cd43.jpeg\"\/)
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