The failure to sell this Quebec City church to a Coptic Orthodox community has reshuffled the cards for its future. The failure to sell the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church to a Coptic Orthodox community has reshuffled the cards for its future. The city of Quebec is once again offering to buy it and the Trudeau government is still ready to finance part of the work.
“We have always worked with a view to a possible transaction by the city,” declared the councillor responsible for the file on the city’s executive committee, Mélissa Coulombe-Leduc.
It has been almost ten years since the church closed its doors and a new vocation has been sought. The first plan was to turn it into a multi-functional room, then a genealogy center.
The city then took up the file with a cultural and community project. Its offer was awaited when the Coptic community of Quebec proposed in 2023 to buy it.
But the factory revealed last week that the latter had withdrawn. And even before this announcement, the city had made it known last June that it still wanted to buy it to preserve its community vocation.
Jean-Yves Duclos still interested
The Saint-Jean-Baptiste Church is one of the highest-classified religious heritage buildings in Quebec City. Classified since 1991, it is considered to be of “exceptional” value for both its exterior and interior appearance. It also houses a Casavant organ that also enjoys heritage protection.
The sale of the church itself is expected to be for a symbolic amount (the Coptic Orthodox community was to acquire it for $1) since it requires expensive work.
It would cost 34 million over fifteen years to renovate it, according to a technical audit carried out in 2023 by the firms Raymond Chabot-Grant-Thornton and BGLA.
An envelope that Mme Coulombe-Leduc hopes to see it partly financed by the federal government and the MP and minister Jean-Yves Duclos, who has been interested in the project for years.
According to Mr. Duclos’ press attaché, the latter still intends to be involved. “We will definitely be there to support the city,” explained Guillaume Bertrand. “This is an issue that Mr. Duclos has been following since the 2015 election and it’s good that the city is taking the ball on the rebound.”
According to him, the project could be financed by the Green and Inclusive Community Buildings Program (BCVI) from which Pignon Bleu and Patro-Laval have benefited.
Artists’ workshops and community vocation
The neighborhood, which has about 10,000 residents, is in dire need of meeting places, says M.me Coulombe-Leduc. The neighborhood council must hold its meetings in the neighboring neighborhood of Montcalm. “There were organizations like Saint-Vincent-de-Paul that did food distribution, AA meetings…”
The Le Carrefour project, which the city was working on before the sale to the Coptic community, also included plans to develop co-working spaces upstairs and artists’ studios and bedrooms in the basement. In the plan presented in the Raymond Chabot-Grant-Thornton and BGLA study, the nave was to be reserved for events and meetings, as was the large room in the basement. There was also talk of developing a café and a boutique on the street side.