Nobody wants to buy Hochelaga church
Très-Saint-Rédempteur church in Hochelaga was put up for sale a year and a half ago, but hasn’t found a buyer. I may have missed others, but I think to date the only really big church that’s been converted to condos here is the one on St-Laurent at St-Zotique, which took a long time and was obviously expensive to do. These buildings are not easily repurposed for residential space.
Hm, there’s the one on St-Denis near Duluth which became a gym and spa, but I presume that one, and the one that became Théâtre Paradoxe, take advantage of the main feature of a church building, i.e. they mostly consist of a big hall. This doesn’t work so well when creating condo spaces.
It may come to this: strip these buildings of any artwork, stained glass and boiseries, and tear them down. A lot of new residential spaces could be built on freed-up lots in the older parts of town. Not all our old churches are architectural gems that must be preserved at all costs. Many are already collapsing anyway.
Mark Côté 11:51 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
It may come to this: strip these buildings of any artwork, stained glass and boiseries, and tear them down.
That’s what they’re doing in NDG.
Kate 11:52 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
Good! But that was a fairly small church which, I think, was run by Lutherans for a long time, and they don’t go in for decor. Wouldn’t be much by way of art to remove.
Mark Côté 11:54 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
Of course it took years of negotiations with the local population and at least two owners of the land before they finally settled on a plan.
Kate 11:55 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I remember that. A bigger residential project was shot down by the burghers of NDG.
DeWolf 14:19 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
You’ve said that before, Kate, and I’m always surprised that you think these neighbourhood landmarks should be dispensed with. It’s not the stained glass and frescoes that make them remarkable, it’s their very presence in the city. The big Catholic churches add definition and variety to the landscape, and they are a reflection of both architectural heritage and the city’s cultural heritage. Montreal developed around its churches and the city’s urban form doesn’t make sense without them. Tearing them down would be cutting off the city’s ears. It would become deaf to its own history.
Just because most churches are functionally obsolete as religious facilities doesn’t mean they have no relevance. They were built as community gathering places as well as social service centres. NGOs and community groups are always struggling to find room for offices and events – give them the parish hall. Turn the rectory into a rooming house. And turn the church itself into a performance space for independent theatre groups and indie music promoters who struggle to find space because of high rents or noise complaints. Or libraries. Or city-run gyms. Anything, really, because why build a generic concrete box for some kind of civic facility when you can use a church instead?
Tearing down the churches for redevelopment instead of converting them to secular community use would basically be a capitulation to the idea that the city exists only as a place to make money: you have the places where people live, and then you have the businesses where they earn and spent money, with nothing in between.
DeWolf 14:24 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I should be clear I’m talking about the giant churches like Très-Saint-Rédempteur, which were the locus of urban development in Montreal, and not little churches like the one in NDG that didn’t play such an integral role in the neighbourhood around it.
Kate 14:36 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
DeWolf, I don’t think all the churches should go, but there are some that are really done. If you haven’t gone and looked at St-Eusèbe-de-Verceil on Fullum, go have a look sometime. I don’t think it has served any purpose for a long time. It’s not even acting like Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs on Wellington, or Saint-Esprit on Masson, by opening up the commercial street pattern in a beneficial way. And no church that has lively community uses in its church hall should go, but there are some that should.
That said, it’s a long-term problem if the community only uses the basement, whereas most of the expense goes to preserving the spire or the towers, the bells and the main church, which hardly anyone is using. Someone’s going to have to sort this out.
Clément 14:59 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I believe this condo building in NDG used to be a church (could have been a convent or something similar though).
There’s currently a 2 bedroom unit in there for sale for 1.8 M$…
DeWolf 15:05 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
The problem is that so many churches were left to rot in the first place. There needs to be a concerted effort to proactively find new uses for them. There should be a land trust with funding both from public and private sources whose goal is to maintain the churches and find ways to adapt them for reuse.
Kate 16:00 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
Some churches were left to rot, but there are two I know of (St-Jean-Baptiste in the Plateau and St Gabriel’s in the Point) which were badly damaged by fire a long time ago, patched up more or less, but would hardly come up to code if you inspected them, and lots which were not damaged (and have been more or less looked after) but which need constant expensive care not to fall down. St-Zotique in St-Henri had to give up part of one of its steeples a couple of years ago when it began to tip over visibly near Notre-Dame Street. And these three I mention are operating parishes, not abandoned hulks like St-Eusèbe.
The basic problem is that these buildings were put up for, and with the contributions of, hundreds if not thousands of parishioners, with the expectation that their descendants would happily chip in for maintenance in perpetuity, but that hasn’t happened. The Quebec government chips in, but there’s a limit to the sanity of patching them all up forever.
Clément: Nice find. I hadn’t thought of that one, I don’t think it was ever a parish church. Here it is – the Monastère du Precieux Sang. Just north of Villa Maria station.
That condo is really something – imagine living with that round window. And voilà – a breakfast bar.
PatrickC 16:12 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I have a memory of a small church on Saint-Jacques in Ville Saint-Pierre (I, think, I would glimpse it from the 20) that was turned into residences, I believe, though I’m not finding it on Google Maps just now.
Daisy 16:28 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
St. John the Divine Anglican Church in Verdun was converted into condos.
http://www.vanishingmontreal.com/p/st-john-divine-anglican-church.html
Clément 16:43 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
Kate I don’t think your link is working.
As soon as I noticed the breakfast bar, I knew you’d comment on it.
Kate 16:47 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
Fixed the link, Clément, thanks.
Couldn’t resist.
orr 19:10 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
315 Prince Arthur west is a very nice church condo conversion. From outside it looks like an absolute jewel.
266 Rachel est is a convent (right beside the church) condo conversion that I also find very nice and not obtrusively modernized.
CE 19:56 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I second 315 Prince Arthur west. Extremely well done and the balconies on the side look really nice. I have a friend who lived in one of the La Cité buildings and could get a good view from it from there. I was always impressed by the conversion.
GC 20:54 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
I was going to mention that Prince Arthur one, too. It looks great from the outside.
Nick D. 21:39 on 2021-02-19 Permalink
What about the building on Duluth at Hotel-de-Ville (214 Duluth est), which viewed from behind looks like it must’ve been a church or synagogue — it’s now apartments. Ah, I just looked it up: the building was built as synagogue Beth Jehuda ( https://histoireplateau.org/toponymie/vp/duluth/duluth.html ) from 1913 to 1926 but turned into apartments in the 1960s. See also: https://histoireplateau.org/architecture/lieuxdeculte/bethJehuda/bethJehuda.html