Despite its strong heritage interest, Sept-Îles town hall will be razed to provide between 150 and 250 additional parking spaces for the benefit of the Integrated Health and Social Services Center (CISSS) of the North Shore.
The CISSS acquired the land this week for $18.5 million. The town hall, deemed to be of major heritage importance, will be razed immediately. For several years, the hospital had wanted to acquire this space.
The mayor of Sept-Îles, Denis Miousse, was, until 2023, president of the board of directors of the CISSS. He resigned from these positions to run for mayor. The mayor is also prefect of the MRC of Sept-Rivières, the body which, under the law, can have a right of review when the time comes to authorize the demolition of heritage buildings.
Sept-Îles city hall is considered by several experts to be a modern building of major heritage interest. An expertise carried out by the firm Patri-Arch concluded that the building is “one of the most important heritage buildings in Sept-Îles”. Commissioned by the municipality, the report was initially kept secret by the latter, before public pressure demanded its disclosure.
Mayor Miousse described the announcement of the demolition as a “historic” moment which he welcomed, reports the local weekly My North Shore. “Everyone has been talking about this issue for about thirty years,” says the mayor, who is pleased to have brought to fruition what others besides him have wanted for a long time. “The current council has always wanted to be a facilitator” for the CIUSS, he explained in an interview.
The general director of the municipality, Catherine Lauzon, was also delighted to see the building soon “deconstructed”. She says, reports the weekly My North Shorethat “the gesture is not made without consideration for the history of Sept-Îles”.
“If we use the word “deconstruction”, explains Mme Lauzon in the newspaper The North Coast, it is not because we want to avoid the word “demolition”. This means that it is a dismantling following the principles of eco-responsibility, which aims at the reuse or recycling of different components. »
Demolish or restore?
The renovation of the current building, considered dilapidated, was estimated at $14.1 million. In comparison, the costs generated by the demolition and the need for reconstruction are estimated at 33 million, reports The North Coast.
To finance its project for a new citizens’ center, the municipality intends to use a subsidy from Quebec, through the Municipal Infrastructure Improvement and Construction Program. Sept-Îles hopes to receive at least $4.5 million from the state. Sept-Îles is also counting, in this process, on the money that already comes indirectly from Quebec, i.e. $18.5 million for the purchase of the land this week by the CISSS.
Despite all these sums, if we are to believe the information published by The North Coastthe citizens of Sept-Îles will have to spend around an additional 14.5 million to acquire a new building within two years.
The administration affirms that this choice of a new construction is the best. Demolition work on the current building is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2025, with the hope of an inauguration in 2026.
Oppositions from Quebec
In 2021, the Ministry of Culture and Communications had disapproved the municipal administration’s intention to get rid of the building. In a letter of which The duty had obtained a copy, he deplored that Sept-Îles was embarking on such a project without taking into account the importance of the building.
The ministry said, among other things, that it could not explain how Sept-Îles could make such a choice, “despite the heritage assessment carried out by the firm Patri-Arch in 2020 which concluded that the building had greater heritage interest”.
By virtue of its law, the State and its creatures, including municipalities, must in principle be exemplary in terms of protection and enhancement of heritage.
No tears, says the mayor
No one shed tears at city hall upon the announcement of its demolition, said Mayor Denis Miousse after meeting with employees to inform them of the agreement signed with the local CIUSS. “At City Hall, everyone was happy with the changes that are coming,” assures the mayor.
Former architectural technician, citizen of Sept-Îles, Mario Dufour is not happy. He is one of the citizens who fought to have city hall protected.
In his opinion, “if accepted by the Council of Ministers”, the demolition will indeed go ahead this time. “It is important to know that the CISSS have the power of expropriation,” he adds. In his opinion, against the interests of preserving Quebec heritage within the State itself, “this “negotiation” was carried out with a threat on its head”. He believes that there could be a form of “disguised expropriation”.
A major building
In a letter published by The duty, architect Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Center for Architecture, explained that this city hall is the work of the ARCOP agency, a major architectural firm in the post-war period. This public building, inaugurated in 1960, “is an important mark of our architectural heritage” in Canada, she wrote. The ARCOP firm is, among other things, linked to the construction of Place Ville-Marie and Place des Arts in Montreal, as well as the Confederation Center of the Arts in Charlottetown and the National Arts Center in Ottawa. According to this distinguished architectural historian, “Sept-Îles city hall plays a crucial role in the history of post-war public architecture in Canada.”
“Destroying the Sept-Îles town hall to make a parking lot there is a social and urban outrage,” indicated Mr.me Lambert. In his opinion, we are trading “a vital building for an empty space”, for a parking lot. For her, from the start, it was a bad example and a “catastrophic measure for the development of the cities” of tomorrow.