NDG's Walkley neighbourhood to get much-needed community space as part of CSDM school expansion

Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough is chipping in $3.2 million towards the expansion of a local school so it can be more than just a spacious place for kids to learn, but a centre for the whole community.

That centre — with an expanded gym for basketball and other sports and rooms residents and organizations can use for French-language classes for new immigrants and other activities — will be part of a $20-million expansion of Les-Enfants-Du-Monde elementary school slated to begin next summer.

The school, on the corner of Chester and Rosedale avenues, is one of many French-language schools in the borough that's overcrowded.

A new centre is something residents and community activists in the low-income neighbourhood around Walkley Avenue have been demanding for decades. The densely packed neighbourhood lacks space for large events or indoor sport activities.

"There is no healthy community without recreation facilities for the kids to grow," said Simeon Pompey, director of a local youth organization called Comité Jeunesse NDG and a self-described "proud product of Walkley" who grew up in the area.

The new community centre will be built just 600 metres from the old Walkley Community Centre. That centre, co-managed by Pompey's organization, was built into a shuttered McDonald's on Côte-St-Luc Road in the late 1990s.

The retrofitted fast-food joint, rented by the borough, doesn't have enough room for large events, while Pompey said the new space, with its big gym, is just what the area needs.

Being in a school will improve services because community programming involves not just kids and teens, but their parents as well, he said.

A collaborative effort

Les-Enfants-du-Monde school will get 14 new classrooms with the new addition, and construction should take roughly 18 months, said Marie-José Mastromonaco, the vice-chair of the Commission Scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) and the NDG school commissioner.

With provincial Education Ministry funding secured for the expansion earlier this year, Mastromonaco reached out to borough officials with the idea of adding the community centre.

Knowing the area needs such a space, she said she saw the school's expansion as a golden opportunity to build one from the ground up.

"Let's all work together for the well-being of the kids, their families and the citizens," she said. "Let's all work together to create a space that has all kinds of services for the community."

Activities can even be expanded into the nearby Gilbert-Layton Park, which the school abuts, she said.

The blueprints for the school expansion are still being drawn up, so Mastromoncaco was unable to say exactly how much space will be dedicated to the community centre, but there will likely be kitchen space included, allowing for food-centred activities.

Turning schools into community hubs is something she'd like to see done in other places because, she said, schools are already familiar neighbourhood landmarks.

Saving money by doubling up, mayor says

Borough mayor Sue Montgomery said schools, community organizations and city officials don't work together enough.

Building an all-new community space wouldn't be possible with a mere $3.2 million, she said. The money for this project will come from the borough's budgetary surplus.

"This is a great way for everybody to save money and double up on sharing facilities," Montgomery said.

"It's exciting because it's the first time in many, many decades we've had some sort of co-operation like this, and if it works, in the future, I think we can do that with other schools or other institutions."