Apartment for rent in Saint-Michel: neighbourhood guide

The Saint-Michel area is part of the seigneury of Beauport, granted on January 15, 1634, to Robert Giffard, a surgeon and apothecary from Mortagne-au-Perche. During the first decades, settlement was concentrated near the river, around the bourg du Fargy. In the 1670s, the second seigneur, Joseph Giffard, granted land further inland along new ranges, including the Saint-Michel and Saint-Joseph ranges.

Rue Seigneuriale is the old road that linked these ranges to the heart of the seigneury. In 1725, Beauport had about a hundred families spread across its ranges. Avenue Saint-Michel and avenue Joseph-Giffard, the former Saint-Joseph range, still follow these roads. The house at 94 avenue Saint-Michel, built between 1830 and 1860, is among the oldest in the area.

Despite its proximity to Québec City, the area remained agricultural until the mid-20th century. To the east, huge limestone quarries supplied the Ciments Saint-Laurent cement plant; they are now abandoned. During the 1960s and 1970s, Beauport gradually became a suburb. On January 1, 1976, six neighbouring municipalities were merged into the city of Beauport.

During the 2002 municipal reorganizations, Beauport was merged into Québec City, and Saint-Michel became one of the borough’s five neighbourhoods, first called district 5-2. Since the turn of the millennium, the former Saint-Joseph range has become a residential area, and a large shopping centre has opened there. Between 1996 and 2016, the neighbourhood’s population grew from 13,645 to 17,885, an increase of 31.1%.