Not so very, very long ago, Old Montreal was a residential wasteland.

The first European settlers, missionaries, traders, trappers and adventurers settled by the water, building their forts, churches, homes and businesses there in buildings that can still be seen today. But as wave upon wave of pioneer waded ashore, they pushed along the flanks of the mountain and out, overwhelming the native population and dispersing it.

Over centuries, life that had centred on the river and around the harbour moved uptown. By the time The Gazette moved into the Old Montreal Star building on St. Jacques in 1980, Old Montreal was an enclave of newspaper publishing, shipping, the stock market, tacky tourist traps, parking lots and street upon street of empty or repurposed historic buildings. It was only through the heroic efforts of architectural historians like Phyllis Lambert and then Gazette classical music critic Eric McLean that Jean Drapeau’s wrecking ball did not swing through one of the oldest communities in North America.

One such survivor of the boom and bust economies was the seven-storey Lancashire Building, at 244 St. Jacques W. Designed by famed Montreal architect Edward Maxwell and his younger brother William Sutherland in 1898 for the British firm London and Lancashire Life Assurance Company in what was then the heart of the Montreal financial district, it had a checkered life, like many of the grand old commercial buildings in the grand old city. By the time it was acquired by Montreal developers Les Project Europa in 2011, the Lancashire had pretty much run out of gas, while Old Montreal had become revitalized as a place to both work and live. And so, it is being reborn as a condo development.

Project Europa’s Jean-Pierre Houle loves the Lancashire and is overseeing its transformation into 17 residential units on six floors and a ground-floor commercial space, ready for occupancy in September this year, all things being equal. During a recent conversation, he said 60 per cent of the condos were already pre-sold, “with little marketing. The building speaks for itself.