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It has been sitting empty for four years, but a little-known outdoor pool near the Royal Victoria Hospital should become a haven for families living downtown, Projet Montréal says.

“We’ve already promised to green the mountain by planting trees, and this morning we are pledging to make it more of a family environment,” Projet Montréal leader Valérie Plante said at the Peel St. entrance to Mount Royal Park on Wednesday morning. “We want to make a park where, right now, there is a parking lot.”

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Plante said her party will negotiate with McGill University, which is planning to redevelop the abandoned hospital and transform it into an extension of its campus.

Plante said there is no outdoor pool in the Ville-Marie borough, except for the one on Parc Jean-Drapeau, so there is a need for a community pool. She said the borough also has a shortage of outdoor parks with playgrounds for children.

Before it closed in 2013, the pool was known as a party scene with many McGill students using it and where alcohol was routinely consumed. It was shut down by the hospital after a man drowned there. Plante said if it were reopened as a public pool, it would follow all the rules governing the city’s public pools, which forbid alcohol.