Facelift for a cathedral
Renovation sparks excitement at Montreal’s St. James United Church
By Sara Jewell
United Church Observer, November 2006
Montreal — It’s nine o’clock on a weekday morning in downtown Montreal. Delivery trucks line the curbs of side streets, the low rumble of their idling engines thickening the cool morning air. Walking down Rue City Councillors, behind a cluster of downtown hotels, I look up as the cloudy sky brightens through a break in the highrise buildings. There they are: the gothic towers of St. James United Church. In a world of straight lines and rounded corners, of glass and concrete, the jagged towers spike into the sky above them.
Approaching Boulevard de Maisonneuve, the sound of a carillon floats over the noise of the traffic and bounces off the buildings, surrounding me. It is the sound of a church making itself known to the community. For St. James, after 80 long years in the wilderness, has regained dominance of Rue Ste. Catherine, commanding the attention of Montreal citizens like a divine revelation. A row of storefronts, erected in front of the church in 1927, have finally come down.
“The storefronts were a temporary measure,” says Rev. Arlen Bonnar, the minister at St. James for the past six years. “It was probably the wise decision at the time but, in retrospect, I think the stores were the blessing and the curse. The blessing was that they provided financial resources needed to keep the building and the congregation going, and the curse was it cut us off visibly from the rest of the city. The intent was to take them down as soon as possible, but we became dependent on the revenue from those buildings.”
For years, the church has been entirely hidden behind the “temporary” buildings. An alcove leading to the church’s huge front door and a neon sign above the sidewalk were all that indicated the existence of this massive cathedral church built in 1885. The storefronts not only blocked the view of the striking Rose Window but they also forced the church to remove the stained glass window at the front.
When Bonnar answered the call to St. James, he admits that like all his predecessors, he too dreamed of taking down the storefronts. At the time, the stonework of the towers was being refurbished by stonemasons L.M. Sauvé, a family company spanning three generations who have worked on many of the old stone buildings in downtown Montreal. Bonnar struck up a relationship with Paul Sauvé, a businessman who would make that dream a reality.
“Paul Sauvé was quite committed to the future of St. James as a historical structure. He and I clicked in terms of vision,” Bonnar explains.
Sauvé, a savvy businessman in his 30s, created a new company, Dévélopment St. James, to undertake the $8-million project. Since the provincial government at the time was encouraging private-public partnerships, Bonnar made the most of the fact that St. James is a provincially and federally recognized heritage site.
“Together with Paul, we got the financial package together and the political goodwill to go ahead with this project that people said would never happen.”
Half the funds came from the government, and the other half were provided through the development company. What really made it happen was a compromise. Bonnar and Sauvé recognized from the start that the dream of taking down every storefront wasn’t financially feasible for the church. So they came up with the idea of leaving one storefront on each corner and leasing them out to the developer.
“Sixty years from now, when those buildings revert back to the church as fairly new buildings having been fully restored, the developer will hand us a cheque for about $25 million (from a floating fund the developer is required to contribute to for the duration of the lease). With that money, the congregation in the future has options we don’t have now. We’ve protected the past, we’ve taken care of the present and we’ve ensured the future.”
Stuck into the top of the bulletin board in the office of the director of the Montreal City Mission are two identical postcards of the new stained glass window commissioned to replace the one torn out by the construction of the storefronts 80 years ago. The window depicts a flame, representing both Moses’ encounter with the burning bush as well as the fires of Pentecost. I ask Paula Kline, in whose office we sit, why she’s drawn to that imagery.
“It’s the fire,” she says after gazing at the postcards for a moment. “The energy and new life. The excitement of being here at this church at this time. It’s metaphorical — being fired up with new ideas, and the passion to carry them out.”
The Montreal City Mission was founded in 1919 by a group of downtown churches, including St. James. It has been a mission of the United Church since 1957 and moved its offices to the upper floor of St. James in 2004.
“It’s wonderful to be here. It really feels like coming home in so many ways,” says Kline of the organization’s presence inside the old church. “On a personal level, it has kindled something inside me. Mystery, awe, excitement. I’m not one for focusing on buildings more than on people, but I think a historic building like St. James can generate so much in terms of excitement, concrete programs, new vision and theology just by existing and carrying with it all that history.”
That same sense of renewal reverberates through the halls of the United Theological College/Le Séminaire Uni located in downtown Montreal.
“We have come back to life with new programs and new opportunities,” says principal Phillip Joudrey. “St. James has ripped down buildings that have hidden it for 80 years. So there has been this interesting parallel path of these two institutions.” In that, he says, they found mutual encouragement. “We’ve found ways to cheer each other on. It’s a rough row to hoe these days for theological colleges and for inner-city churches.”
Rob Bull is a volunteer with St. James’ Open Door program, which welcomes tourists into the Victorian-era sanctuary during the summer months. On average, from June through August, about 5,000 people would venture down the alcove and into the church. After the demolition of the storefronts, an astounding 30,000 people toured the church this past summer.
“You have people who have lived here all their lives walking down the sidewalk saying ‘Where the heck did that come from?’” Bull says of the church’s sudden reappearance on the block, “and they’ll come in and ask about it.”
He says many of the visitors are French Canadians with a Roman Catholic background who aren’t familiar with the United Church.
As we talk in the sanctuary, an award-winning recording of the St. James-based People’s Gospel Choir plays in the background. It is a reminder that St. James wasn’t lifeless before the stores came down, just languishing in the shadows.
“You have to have faith,” Bull says about the gamble of this massive restoration. “It was the growth we could see amongst ourselves that let us believe we could do this.”