A former flour mill on the Canal du Midi soon to be rehabilitated into an associative café in the south of Toulouse
It’s a beautiful story that comes to us from Lauragais. It combines attachment to the territory, heritage and the dynamism of rurality. In the town of Gardouch (1,300 inhabitants), very close to the lock, the old flour mill, abandoned since the 1980s, will find new life. At the end of next summer normally, it will host an associative café, a meeting room, a coworking space and a pop-up shop. A performance hall and tourist accommodation project is also planned for the long term.
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Between the 18th century and the end of the 20th century, the flour mill transformed the cereals produced in the Lauragais region into flour, transported on the Canal du Midi. The place fell into disuse in the 1970s when the river transport of goods ceased. “It was really a place in disrepair when we visited it in 2019, but we fell in love“, explains Julien Hagendorf, a resident of the sector, formerly an employee of the EELV group at the town hall of Toulouse. Today he chairs the Canal Coop association alongside the one who bought the building with her own funds, Elodie Soulard, very involved in the community life of Villefranche-de-Lauragais and about to give birth to her baby.
Crowdfunding campaign
The building, which goes relatively unnoticed near the lock, is roughly 800 square meters, there is everything to redo apart from the frame and the walls. The association created in December 2020 and which now has 60 citizen members, first set out to find funding. Because the rehabilitation project costs a little more than one million euros (330.00 euros for the first phase).
The Occitanie Region responded to the round table with the envelope of 150,000 euros, followed by European funds (115,000 euros). The Department, the community of communes of the Lands of Lauragais have also preserved. A crowdfunding campaign
on the Ulule platform is in progress until January 13 also, it could allow to pay 12,000 euros. The Caisse d’Allocations Familiales will also finance the operation of third places, via the label granted “Social Living Space
“.”There is a real expectation from the Lauragaisassures Julien Haguendorf, the territory is demographically very dynamic and needs are not always met, local initiatives sometimes dispersed“.
In this project, will come first at the end of the summer, the opening of an associative café (with terrace) where walkers, tourists and inhabitants can quench their thirst, share a few boards and attend various activities such as concerts. A coworking room will be set up upstairs for these teleworkers between Toulouse and Carcassonne who will not find a collective space. An ephemeral shop and a meeting room will complete this third place. “Of course, in the summer there will be an increase in activity with the tourists of the canal but it is a place which is designed above all for the inhabitants of the sector, all year round.», argues David Almond, member of the board of directors, agent of Toulouse Métropole in the city, citizen lauragais committed elsewhere.
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To be financially sustainable, the project was designed to put on its side multi-activities. “The rental of spaces should bring us funds, as well as the activity of the café. But we are counting a lot on the investment of local authorities“, specifies Julien Haguendorf. The third place is not intended to be lucrative, but to create links, solidarity, service in a forgotten heritage site.”No doubt the inhabitants of Gardouch have forgotten that a flour mill has been discovered here, but it makes sense to give meaning to history. people are very perceived when we talk to them about it“, abounds in turn Claire Rieu, future resident of Gardouch already involved in the social and solidarity economy.
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At the end of 2024, the second phase of the work, the most necessary, should be concluded with the creation in the old silo of a small performance hall with 80 seatsas well as eventually the possibility ofcollective housing, renting rooms for groups of tourists who cannot easily find them along the canal. The possibility of a cycle stop had been mentioned but a project is already underway at the neighboring lock of Renneville.
The third place will simply be called La Minoterie.