The Nacéo museum project is taking on water

Sables-d’Olonne (Vendée). “Nacéo will live, otherwise! »assured the mayor of Sables-d’Olonne, Nicolas Chénéchaud, in a succinct press release published at the beginning of September. Behind this promise of the future, a more concrete reality: the halt given to the Nacéo Museum project, dedicated to people of the sea and the maritime world, which was to see the light of day near the Arundel Tower (see ill.). Temporary suspension or permanent abandonment? If the location initially chosen seems definitively ruled out, the future remains uncertain. “During this mandate, we will redefine places dedicated to the history of seafarers”indicates Nicolas Chénéchaud, without specifying further where or in what form this ambition could materialize.

A museum weakened by additional costs and constraints

As for the reasons given, they are both technical and financial. Since the adoption of the project at the beginning of 2022, the forecast envelope of 7.9 million euros excluding tax has increased significantly, as a result of“a construction cost which (…) has increased significantly with inflation”. Added to this are difficulties inherent to the site which revealed themselves along the way. Partly planned underground, the future equipment was to be deployed in the moats and rooms of Château Saint-Clair, which already houses a Museum of the Sea – much more modest, until now closed pending the opening of Nacéo. Above all, the route had to end at the top of the Arundel tower, which had long remained the only lighthouse in Vendée, an emblem of Sablais maritime history. But in 2023, studies carried out before the start of the project warn of the fragility of the building. A cement coating, laid during previous restorations, encouraged the accumulation of humidity in the masonry of the tower, to the point of causing significant cracks. For eighteen months, until last July, an emergency restoration was then carried out, the operation increasing the bill to the tune of 2.26 million euros. “This restoration put the Nacéo project on hold two years ago and revealed all the complexity of building a museum near Arundel Tower”specifies Nicolas Chénéchaud, pointing out the need to carry out “consequent archaeological excavations, the duration of which we have no control over or the cost which would amount to several million euros for the City”.

This halt brings the town back to a question more than a century old: how to better promote its maritime heritage? Since the 1920s, residents have been mobilizing to create a museum honoring people of the sea, fishing and great marine adventures. After several projects that remained without follow-up, Nacéo ended up establishing itself as a flagship issue of the previous mandate. Its formalization, however, was not without controversy. A group of local residents thus opposed the construction, in front of their homes, of a reception hall initially planned at 10.5 meters in height, before the plans were finally revised downwards.