The project that replaces the old Pathé cinema in Caen unveiled in a hurry
Through Christophe Jaquet
Published on
Visibly, Joël Bruneau was in a hurry to get it over with. And move to another folder lying around on his desktop (randomly, the gourmet market on the Place de la République ?). Thursday, January 11, 2023, the mayor of Caen (Calvados) provoked, more than summoned, a public meeting at the Town Hall to present the real estate project soon raised in the city center, on the wasteland of the former Pathé cinema, in the city centeron Leclerc Blvd.
“Don’t want that”
A meeting on the sly, in front of about fifty people, to which the press was not invited, but which nevertheless leaked to our colleagues from West France.
A meeting can be rushed. Already, the building permit was filed on December 15, and the legal deadline for appeal, under two months, has not yet been served. And the only partner of the City on the project, the SCI Leclerc, seems a little jostled.
“We didn’t want that,” says Xavier Feray, the SCI representative invited to the meeting. ” It’s too early to say what benefits we’re going to offer. We are on very high standing, obligatory. But we have not yet set the price for marketing the homes. Since the meeting, the SCI has been “really harassed with calls”.
“Owner of the foot of the building”, where the shoemaker Bata was housed, the real estate company deployed in Strasbourg signed a sale agreement with the City of Caen to buy back the part of the building which it co-owned, namely the area of the former Pathé cinema, and its apartment upstairs. As soon as the sale has been recorded, and the building permit has been confirmed, SCI Leclerc will proceed with the complete demolition of the existing building “at the end of spring, in the best of cases,” says Xavier Feray. ” It is necessary to count 18 months of work after demolition. »
Terraces for all
Luxury housing and shops should therefore not be delivered before 2025. For the moment, Xavier Feray says he is far from knowing what type of sign can be installed on two levels, on the ground floor and on the first floor. He “thinks of two duplex cells” on 600 m². But other scenarios, such as having a single tenant, are possible.
SCI Leclerc a clearer vision of the rest of the project, deployed over 3,000 m² of living space in total. It must market 12 apartments, “from large T3 to T5”, specifies Xavier Feray, spread over 4 floors. Each will have a long terrace, with a 180° view of the city center, which will make some people pale. The future owners, presumably wealthy, will have access to an underground car park, with 16 parking spaces, via “a car lift”. As boulevard Leclerc is pedestrianized, they will enter it through the courtyard at the rear of the future building, leading to rue Bellivet.
The unobstructed view of a monument in Caen
For all the players in the case, this strange presentation sounds like the epilogue of an “old project”. Since the Pathé cinema closed in May 2013, the building has remained empty. With the old C&A store just opposite, it was for Joël Bruneau “a wart” that was a stain in the city center. According to Xavier Feray, “discussions with the City began 7 years ago”. A deadline confirmed by Sébastien Gardette, one of the three partners of the MCG Architectes agency, who signs the surprising design of the new building.
The agency, already involved in Caen in the Memorial, the interior design of the MoHo or the Laplace high school boarding school, carried out “long-term work with many stakeholders and constraints”, according to Sébastien Gardette . Its location in the city center makes it “a major project”. Which responds “to both an urban and historical issue”.
How does the MCG agency do? After tight discussions with the architect consultant of the City and that of the Buildings of France, she imagined a partly circular building. The curve of the facade allows “to clear the view of the Hôtel de Than”, one of the best preserved monuments in Caen, in particular from the rue du Moulin. And the choice to affix a curved glass roof along the future shops “generated a continuous visual accompaniment”, a game of mirrors appreciated with the Hôtel de Than, according to Sébastien Gardette.
When will there be a connection with the Bellivet islet?
On the other side, the flat part of the project has another interest for Nicolas Joyau, assistant for town planning at the town hall. On boulevard Leclerc, it “clings to the buildings of the Reconstruction, a heritage that we want to highlight”.
Two businesses block the passage
The City of Caen launched a study in 2015 on the future of the Bellivet block. With, from the start, the idea of “extending the public space”, according to Nicolas Joyau, by creating a passage from boulevard Leclerc to rue Bellivet. The real estate project on the wasteland of the former Pathé allows the municipality to dream a little stronger. But it is subject to a major obstacle on the shopping street: two stores, including the wine merchant Nicolas, block the passage… of the pedestrian crossing. “If one day these businesses have to change, the City could seize the opportunity,” says the town planning assistant. “But there is no question of making an expropriation. »
The chosen one, who, with Joël Bruneau, was one of the first to disclose images on his social networks, targets the other advantage of the project. At the foot of the Hôtel de Than, today closed off by a gate, the rounded facade “opens the way to a future pedestrian crossing towards Bellivet islet”. A still very hypothetical passage towards the shopping street, which will also be transformed this year by other works.
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