Quebec City's St-Jean Baptiste church could become genealogy centre
Église St-Jean Baptiste closed its doors in May 2015 due to lack of funding
A beloved Quebec City church that was forced to close its doors last year may be getting a second life.
Église St-Jean Baptiste, located on St-Jean Street in the heart of the city, could house a genealogy centre for francophones across North America.
Built in 1881, the parish held its last mass in May 2015 because it couldn't afford the $10 million in necessary renovations.
Espace solidaire hopes to not only open a digital genealogy centre, but also to reopen the closed community spaces and develop a welcome centre.
"We want to keep the space in the basement for the community," said Marc Chamberland of Espace solidaire.
"It's in the core of our project, it needs to be there."
The organization also hopes to work with the parish to resume mass, if the project is given the go-ahead.
The City of Quebec has provided a $45,000 subsidy to Espace solidaire to conduct a feasibility report.
Chamberland says the centre could also become a cultural hub for tourists of French-Canadian descent.
"There are about 14 million people who are of French-Canadian descent in the northeast United States," Chamberland said. "We want to track them to come and walk back in the steps and paths of their ancestors in Quebec."