The Paramount Development Group, in partnership with Northern Essex Community College, and the City of Lawrence invite the public to participate in a series of community focus group gatherings Tuesday, January 28 6:00 – 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, January 29, 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. or 2:00 – 3:30 p.m. and Thursday, January 30, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., 2020 at the Northern Essex Community College Allied Health & Technology Center, 414 Common Street, Lawrence, MA, Room 301.
The meetings will seek public input on the restoration of the historic cathedral for use as a community cultural center and gathering place and consider the challenges and opportunities ahead, how the Center may best contribute to the greater Lawrence community, and thoughts for making the restoration and revitalization successful. The discussions will be led by theater consultant Don Hirsch of Don Hirsch Design Studio, LLC.
Realizing the cultural and social significance that St. Anne’s Church has had to the city and to the greater Lawrence community, the Paramount Development Group, in partnership with Northern Essex Community College, and the City of Lawrence, has engaged a team of consultants has to create a feasibility study for the renovation and sustainable operation of the historic cathedral as a cultural center and community asset.
The focus group gatherings are informal and broad-based and public input is extremely important and valuable.
St. Anne’s Church and St. Anne’s Parish Hall are the primary surviving buildings of St. Anne’s Parish one of the earliest French-Canadian parishes in New England. Construction on the first St. Anne’s Church (now the Parish Hall on Haverhill Street) began in 1873. By 1900 the parish had outgrown the church and had purchased land to build a new St. Anne’s Church. Construction on the brick masonry structure with soaring Romanesque arches began on April 3, 1903 and was completed by the end of 1905.
The first mass in the new church, with a capacity of 2400, was held on January 1, 1906. Decorative elements and furnishings such as stained-glass windows, the altar, and the organ were added over the years. With a decline in church attendance and membership, St. Anne’s Parish was closed by the Archdiocese of Boston in 1991. However, St. Anne’s Church continued to serve a Latino Roman Catholic congregation for a brief period of time in the early 1990s, and the Parish Hall found use by a Catholic Church-sponsored after-school program until a fire destroyed the adjoining former rectory in approximately 1999.
