Amen Pickleball, Quebec Church Conversions and the Future of Community Sport

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The bells still ring at the San de Mar church, cutting through the quiet Sunday morning air in Chambly, Quebec. Yet, the people gathering inside the grounds are no longer here for mass. The traditional religious services ceased years ago, leaving the building dormant. Today, the cavernous interior echoes with a distinctly modern rhythm: the sharp, percussive crack of composite paddles striking plastic. This is the frontline of an unlikely architectural rescue mission, spearheaded by three local investors who have discovered a novel way to bring congregations back to abandoned civic spaces.

The architectural and cultural context

The explosive global growth of pickleball has created an immediate and well-documented infrastructure crisis, a theme increasingly visible across the sport’s wider global news coverage. Across North America and Europe, player demand has vastly outpaced the construction of dedicated facilities. For urban operators, finding existing buildings that possess the requisite high ceilings, column-free floor plans, and central locations necessary for indoor play is a constant struggle. While big-box retail stores and empty industrial warehouses have typically served as the default solutions, they often lack community character and sit on the distant peripheries of major cities.

This is where the Quebec project, operating under the name ‘Amen Pickleball’, presents a fascinating alternative. The initiative is driven by three local investors who identified an untapped resource in the province’s surplus of disused religious buildings. One of the driving forces behind the project, an investor named Bison, openly admits that he is not a religious man. However, he intimately understands the civic and cultural gravity that these structures hold.

For generations, churches dictated the decorum and social rhythm of Quebec’s communities. They were the undisputed centres of neighbourhood life. Bison views the purchase and conversion of these sites as a highly viable business opportunity, but he acknowledges that the motivation goes deeper; it is equally an attempt to save the beating heart of these local areas. The San de Mar church in Chambly, a building constructed more than 75 years ago, served as the group’s initial proof of concept.

Key developments and structural realities

Transforming a 75-year-old place of worship into a high-traffic sporting venue is not merely a cosmetic undertaking. The reality of the Chambly renovation was physically and financially demanding. When Bison and his colleagues finally took possession of the property, they were forced to undertake heavy remedial work, which included repairing the roof, completely replacing the floors, and executing a total rewiring of the electrical systems.

Crucially, the development team did not simply gut the building. They executed these vital upgrades while strictly adhering to local heritage requirements, ensuring that the defining visual and architectural characteristics of the church were meticulously preserved. The resulting facility retains the distinct atmosphere of its original purpose, fusing historic preservation with modern recreational utility.

Having successfully navigated the Chambly conversion, the investment group has rapidly escalated its ambitions. They have now set their sights on a much larger, and significantly older, prize: a vast church located in the East End of the island of Montreal. The physical state of this new target highlights the urgency of their mission. The Montreal church has been entirely closed to worship since 2009, and the building has sat completely without electricity for the past eight years. The structural degradation has reached a critical tipping point, with Bison warning that it would be a “catastrophe” if the historic building were left to endure one more harsh Canadian winter without immediate intervention.

Furthermore, the Montreal project represents an evolution in the group’s development model. Rather than functioning solely as an isolated sports facility, it is positioned as a comprehensive community regeneration effort. The blueprint for the site includes a partnership with a separate property developer to construct nearly 150 affordable housing units in what is currently the church’s parking area. The local community is currently being given the opportunity to weigh in on the proposals. Assuming the project successfully navigates the public consultation phase and secures the necessary approvals, renovations on the Montreal site are slated to begin this summer.

The broader significance of adaptive reuse

Naturally, adaptive reuse of this magnitude and expense invites scrutiny. Local observers and residents have expressed understandable concern over the long-term financial realities of the scheme. Some community members have publicly questioned whether the revenue generated by a suburban pickleball facility will be sufficient to cover the immense, ongoing costs associated with heritage restoration. Yet, despite these financial anxieties, the prevailing sentiment in the community remains largely supportive. Residents have praised the developers for their outside-the-box thinking, subscribing to the pragmatic belief that attempting something unconventional is far better than leaving the buildings to rot into total ruin.

Bison himself is remarkably clear-eyed about the long-term burden his group is taking on. He openly acknowledges that completing the initial renovations is merely the first step in a very long journey; these historic structures will require intensive, continuous maintenance for decades to come. Furthermore, he concedes that pickleball alone is not a silver bullet for the province’s wider architectural crisis. While it is a deeply positive outcome for Chambly, and potentially for the East End of Montreal, the broader problem encompasses all the disused churches scattered across Quebec. As Bison notes, it is simply impossible to convert every single abandoned church into a pickleball court.

From a global industry perspective, however, the Amen Pickleball model offers a compelling case study that fits within broader regional development trends. The fusion of affordable housing development with indoor sports infrastructure presents a highly attractive proposition for city planners worldwide. It actively addresses two distinctly modern urban problems—the housing crisis and the exploding demand for community recreational space—while simultaneously preserving historic architecture that would otherwise face the wrecking ball.

Looking ahead

Despite the daunting financial and logistical hurdles ahead of them, the group operating under the Amen Pickleball banner remains decidedly ambitious about their future impact. They are not treating the Chambly site or the impending Montreal development as isolated experiments. Instead, the team has formally stated their intention to purchase up to ten more churches across the province of Quebec over the next five years.

Ultimately, this initiative is testing a fascinating hypothesis for the sport. If successful, it will prove that the salvation of our most historic and vulnerable community buildings might just lie in the modern hunger for accessible, competitive sport. The traditional pews may be gone, but the San de Mar church is once again fulfilling its original purpose: bringing people together under one roof, and keeping the heart of the community beating.

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