At Notre-Dame Cathedral in Ottawa, we identified opportunities for revenue generation and new forms of visitor engagement within underutilized spaces. We advised the Catholic Diocese on how to develop the site as a tourist destination, while respecting its significance as both an active place of worship and a nationally recognized heritage landmark.
We created a Welcome Centre for tourists with retail space, a small hospitality concept called Café des Tours where visitors could purchase tickets for guided tours in French and English, and an arts space ideal for museum programming for future investment.
The result is a modest but sustainable revenue stream to support the Cathedral’s broader mission. The project demonstrated a viable model for church renewal: modernizing spaces to feel more welcoming and contemporary, while remaining fully aligned with the Cathedral’s spiritual purpose and core values.
