It was a last visit before his disappearance. Dilapidated buildings, imposing tags, endless corridors, the shell of the former Dreux sanatorium awaits its resurrection in its green setting returned to the wild. “The complex was made up of three entities: the preventorium, the sanatorium and the convalescent home. Three exceptional buildings registered in 2022 as historic monuments by the will of the City of Dreux, the DRAC (Regional Directorate of Cultural Action), the architect and France Patrimoine. The buildings have a exceptional architecture“, all in length, which follows the topography of the site”, recalled Pauline Tran, architect in charge of the rehabilitation project.
On this Tuesday, June 25, 2024, nearly eighty residents of Drouais and investors were invited to a final visit to the sanatorium as it was. The establishment, built under the mandate of Maurice-Viollette, between 1928 and 1932, was intended to accommodate patients suffering from tuberculosis. “It was one of the largest in France and the most modern, welcoming more than 1,000 patients at the same time, plus the nursing staff,” recalled Arnaud Baudel, Deputy Managing Director of France Patrimoine, a developer specializing in the purchase and restoration of remarkable buildings, in charge of restoring the site. France Patrimoine purchased the former sanatorium from the city in 2021 for the sum of €950,000 to restore it and rehabilitate 228 homes there. For the time being, the rubble and broken glass have been cleaned up. Work will be able to begin in earnest at the end of the summer holidays. Arnaud Baudel and Pauline Tran revealed the main points of the project: the creation of 228 small-scale housing units, from the studio to the T3, as well as landscaped exteriors. “Of the 228 apartments put up for sale, by 45 salespeople, 221 were sold at an average price of €6,000 per m2. The vast majority of them will be inhabited by tenants. Rents will not exceed market prices,” indicated Arnaud Baudel. The accommodation will be available at the end of 2025. At the end of the visit, Pierre-Frédéric-Billet, mayor of Dreux, slipped in a newspaper of the day, a city medal, a symbolic euro and a document signed in a memory capsule sealed in one of the stones of the entrance staircase to the Pasteur pavilion.
Concerning the high-end hotel project, Pierre-Frédéric Billet specifies: “we are still working on the continuation of the project concerning the preventorium. Bank interest rates skyrocketed so much that it put the price of the five-star hotel that was to be built there back into balance. We are waiting for the financial markets to calm down, we will extend the promise of sale in the coming weeks because we are committed to the completion of this project and the developer is working hard on it. We are also in negotiations with the Dreux cricket club to find them a playing field because we would like to build a golf driving range nearby.”
