Worcester pushes for Notre Dame anti-demolition extension
Grant Welker
Preservationists and Worcester city councilors want to save Notre Dame des Canadiens Church.
Worcester city councilors and preservation advocates are pressing for a further delay in a potential demolition of the long-vacant Notre Dame des Canadiens Church.
The church, located off the east end of Worcester Common, has sat unused for about a decade, with no owner or potential owner yet finding a way to redevelop the property.
On Tuesday, only days after the church's owner said it has a sale agreement for the site, a group of preservation advocates -- many wearing buttons showing an image of the church -- appealed to the city that the church must be saved from demolition. An ordinance that delays demolition expires as soon as next month.
"When I walk under the soaring entrance to the church, I feel the emotion of that upward sweep," said Susan McDaniel Ceccacci, the education director of Preservation Worcester. "Who ever felt that emotion of entering a big box store of even entering the buildings surrounding the church?"
"Just think," she added, "what would Worcester Common look like without Notre Dame?"
State Rep. Mary Keefe, a Worcester Democrat, joined the call, telling the City Hall crowd the church is central to the city's history and culture.
"Notre Dame helps to tell the story of not only who we were but who we are today," she said.
City councilors said they'd also like a solution that keeps the church from being knocked down. They supported a non-binding resolution that would delay a demolition.
"We are not going to forsake our past for the purpose of building new buildings," Councilor Konstantina Lukes said. "Unfortunately, sometimes we have to pay a price for progress, and that's destroying our past, and we clearly don't want to do that here."
Lukes referenced a few historic buildings that have been saved last-minute, like Mechanics Hall, Union Station and the Hanover Theater.
Councilor Gary Rosen compared the outcry over the church to support for a downtown mural project that enlivened the neighborhood.
"If those murals are that important," he said, "why the heck wouldn't Notre Dame be just as important, probably more important than the murals?"
The church's owner since 2010, the developer City Square II, didn't identify the party with which it has entered a sale agreement.
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