Church conversions

[ScreamingViking]

I didn't see a thread for this, but here's a new multi-residential built using St. Thomas Anglican church on the eastern edge of downtown.

There are others, and will be more. Maybe a dedicated thread can include them all?

Anyway, it looks great. A little too much "white" in the decor for my tastes, but that will change as people put their stamp on each unit's interior.


Leap of faith: Hamilton church converted into apartments
Tal Dehtiar took a risk in transforming a former church on West Avenue South.

Teviah Moro
The Hamilton Spectator
Tue., Aug. 23, 2022

https://www.thespec.com/business/rea...partments.html
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%...partments.html



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When word spread that Tal Dehtiar planned to renovate a 150-year-old downtown church into apartments, a few skeptics came out of the woodwork.

He’d run into heritage hurdles. It didn’t compute financially. His timeline was unrealistic.

“Maybe ignorance is bliss, or whatever the expression is,” Dehtiar says.

But he has transformed the 14,000-square-foot stone church into 19 bright and airy units in less than a year — albeit two months or so beyond his original goal.

For Dehtiar — normally a serial entrepreneur with a focus on footwear — the project was a leap of faith.

The Oakville resident bought the West Avenue South church at the corner of Main Street East from Carisma Pentecostal for about $1.5 million.

But Dehtiar says he couldn’t afford to let the project drag on for years while paying interest.

Working to his advantage, the property was already zoned for multi-residential use, which saved him time.

He was also “very fortunate” to have a bank “take a risk” on financing a substantial portion of the roughly $5-million project, which the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation then backed upon refinancing with that original lender.

His aim was to preserve as many heritage elements of the building (originally built as St. Thomas Anglican) as possible.

The units — which range from bachelors to three-bedrooms — feature original trusses, stained-glass windows and arches. They’re renting from about $1,600 to $2,700 a month.

The adaptive-reuse effort comes to fruition during a time of dwindling congregations struggling to maintain their vast, aging structures.

Indwell, a non-profit that develops affordable housing, has partnered with Wentworth Baptist Church to create residential units in the century-old sanctuary at Cannon Street East.

Meanwhile, heritage advocates have urged New Vision United Church to restore St. Giles instead of demolishing it for housing on Holton Avenue South.

The project also coincides with a housing crunch and city hall’s focus of increasing residential density with a forecast 236,000 people expected to make Hamilton home by 2051.

“The great thing about churches is that they’re just open canvasses,” Dehtiar said during a recent tour of 16 West Ave. S.

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