Sainte-Dorothée (Laval): a local broker's top 10

01

The Sainte-Dorothée REM station and its bus terminus, in winter

Transit

The REM, right in the neighbourhood

There's been a train here since 1925, but the old station closed in 2020 for construction. The Sainte-Dorothée station, at 1411 chemin du Bord-de-l'Eau, was inaugurated on November 15, 2025 and reopened to passengers on November 17, this time as a REM station on the Deux-Montagnes branch, between Île-Bigras and Grand-Moulin. It's fully accessible and five Société de transport de Laval bus lines stop there, including routes that connect to the Montmorency and Côte-Vertu metro stations.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets are really within walking distance of the station. The difference between walking and driving weighs heavily at resale.

02

The identity

The kingdom of annual flowers

Serres Sylvain Cléroux, at 1570 rue Principale, bills itself as the largest annual flower grower in Quebec. You can visit a display greenhouse with around 500 plant varieties, pick your own flowers, or take a workshop. Right next door, Ferme Grover also grows annuals and has been established in the neighbourhood for more than seventy years. Come spring, all of Laval passes through here.

Ask me about it: ask me what it's like having working greenhouses near your home. There's good, and there are things to know before you buy.

03

The Sainte-Dorothée wooded area, in Laval, in early spring

Terroir

Fields and a woodland in the middle of the suburbs

Sainte-Dorothée holds most of western Île Jésus's only permanent agricultural zones. Across Laval, about 29% of the territory falls under this zone protected by provincial law, which puts a natural brake on sprawl. Add the boisé Sainte-Dorothée and you get a neighbourhood that keeps pockets of green where other suburbs have built over everything.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets back onto a field or a wooded area that won't be developed. It's one of the first things I check.

04

The Sainte-Dorothée church, rue Principale, in Laval

Heritage

A church designed by Victor Bourgeau

The Sainte-Dorothée church was built from 1871 to 1873 to plans by Victor Bourgeau, the architect behind dozens of churches across Quebec, and built by Narcisse Prévost. It and its rectory both appear in Quebec's Répertoire du patrimoine culturel. Around it, rue Principale keeps the look of the old village: the parish municipality was formed on August 9, 1869 by splitting off from Saint-Martin, the village separated in 1947, the two reunited in 1959 to form the town of Sainte-Dorothée, and the Laval merger came in 1965.

Ask me about it: ask me about the value difference between the old village and the more recent developments. Buyers aren't looking for the same thing in each.

05

The rivière des Prairies between Sainte-Dorothée and Île Bizard

Waterfront

The rivière des Prairies and its three shorelines

The river closes off the neighbourhood to the south, with Île Bizard and Pierrefonds right across. Chemin du Bord-de-l'Eau runs alongside it for kilometres, and the city provides water access through three public shorelines: berge Dumais, berge Couvrette, and berge de la Halte-à-la-Rivière. It's the kind of detail you won't see on a listing sheet, and it completely changes your summer weekends.

Ask me about it: ask me what water access is worth here, and what owning riverfront property on the rivière des Prairies involves. There are checks to run.

06

The Paule II cable ferry crossing the rivière des Prairies toward the Laval shore

The unusual

A cable ferry to cross the river

At the tip of the neighbouring Laval-sur-le-Lac area, a ferry connects Laval to Île Bizard over barely 200 metres. The service has existed since 1861 and has run as a cable-drawn ferry since 1903. The crossing takes about three minutes, the ferry has carried up to six vehicles since 1987, and it runs from April to November. Plenty of residents use it every day to avoid the bridge.

Ask me about it: ask me how the ferry changes the trip to the west end of the island of Montreal. For some buyers, it's what tipped the scale.

07

Archival photo of golfers in front of the clubhouse at the Islesmere golf club, in Sainte-Dorothée

Outdoors

Islesmere golf club, right by the water

At 1199 chemin du Bord-de-l'Eau, the Islesmere golf club offers a parkland-style course, with narrow tree-lined fairways, a driving range, and a restaurant. The archival photo by Conrad Poirier already shows golfers in front of the clubhouse from a time when the name was still spelled Saint-Dorothée. The Laval-sur-le-Lac golf course is right next door, which gives this corner of the island a lot of protected green space.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets border the golf courses. The view is nice, but there are questions worth asking before you sign.

08

The Louis-Bisson Bridge, connecting Laval to Pierrefonds via Highway 13

Access and shopping

Highway 13 and the big-box centres

Highway 13, the Chomedey highway, has run along the east side of the neighbourhood since it opened in 1975. Its Louis-Bisson Bridge, toward Pierrefonds, is the highway's busiest stretch, with an average daily traffic of about 155,000 vehicles. Highway 440 Jean-Noël-Lavoie crosses Laval from east to west and ends here, at Highway 13. It's also along Highway 13 that the area's big shopping centres cluster, including SmartCentres Sainte-Dorothée and the Mega Centre Notre-Dame.

Ask me about it: ask me which streets get the benefit of the highway without the noise. Two streets apart isn't the same property at all.

09

Family life

Twenty-eight parks and six elementary schools

According to the City of Laval's map, the neighbourhood has more than 28 parks, including 27 outdoor parks with facilities. On the school side, six elementary schools serve Sainte-Dorothée: Jean-Lemonde, Les Trois-Soleils, Paul-VI, Pierre-Laporte, Saint-François, and Sainte-Dorothée. High school happens in Chomedey, at école Saint-Martin for the first two years and at Saint-Maxime for the following three. The English Sir Wilfrid Laurier school board also serves the neighbourhood from Chomedey, with Souvenir and Hillcrest at the elementary level and the Laval Junior and Laval Senior academies at the high school level.

Ask me about it: ask me which park and which school are within walking distance of a specific address. I'll have the answer for you before the showing.

10

Aerial view of the southwest tip of Laval, between the rivière des Mille Îles and the rivière des Prairies

The surroundings

The western tip of Île Jésus

Sainte-Dorothée borders Laval-sur-le-Lac to the west, Laval-Ouest to the northwest, Fabreville to the northeast, and Chomedey to the east. Laval-sur-le-Lac is the city's smallest neighbourhood by population, an upscale area of large houses on large lots, with its golf course, curling centre, and Saint-Jean-Gualbert church, opening onto the lac des Deux Montagnes and the rivière des Mille Îles. On the other side, the Îles-Laval form an archipelago of four islands in the rivière des Prairies: île Bigras, île Pariseau, île Ronde, and île Verte.

Ask me about it: ask me to compare Sainte-Dorothée with its immediate neighbours. Buyers often end up shopping three neighbourhoods at once without realizing it.

Sainte-Dorothée

What makes the heart of Sainte-Dorothée beat.