The Bowden Street church conversion on Toronto's Danforth Avenue will see an eight-storey tower added to the building, while also providing a space where the church's diminished congregation will still be able to attend services.Dave LeBlanc/The Globe and Mail
According to a 2021 Statistics Canada report, from 1985 to 2019 people who reported having a “religious affiliation” dropped from 90 per cent to 68 per cent, and attendance in a “group religious activity at least once a month” fell from 43 per cent to 23 per cent.
Which means religious buildings are closing, and quickly. In 2019, the CBC reported that “9,000 churches and other faith-owned buildings in Canada will be shutting down” over the next decade.
But there’s no need for dry numbers: look around your own neighbourhood. Or type “church conversion condos” into Google along with the name of your city or town.
On Toronto’s Danforth Avenue, however, at least one conversion will continue to serve a higher purpose.
Chester Baptist first built a church and Sunday School at the corner of Danforth and Bowden Street in 1911. The architect was the Quebec-born, Toronto-based John Francis Brown (1866-1942), who specialized in churches and, according to his obituary, was “prominent as a layman in the Baptist Church.” In 1931, Chester Baptist expanded, and the front portion, which brought the building up to the sidewalk, was added; it was designed by English-born John Wilson Siddall (1861-1941), who also gave us St. Lawrence Market (the 1899-1900 renovation) and Holy Blossom Temple (115 Bond St.). Stand on Bowden Street and the dividing line is clear: the portion with clinker brick – those blackened, melted-looking bricks one can also spy on the Yonge Street entrance to Mount Pleasant Cemetery – is Brown’s work, and the more reddish, cleaner brick is Siddall’s. You’ll notice a distinct difference in window styles as well.
In 2018, WoodGreen Community Services began a conversation with what was now called Danforth Church. The property had been listed for sale for a while, said Mwarigha, WoodGreen’s vice-president of housing growth, development and asset sustainability, but the interested “developer didn’t get the approvals they wanted” for a condominium project.
“So, one of our friends of WoodGreen who was also a friend of the church said: ‘Would you want to explore the possibility of partnering with the church?’… There was a lot of synergy because they were attracted to the notion of affordable housing – I think they were always uncomfortable about the notion of selling it for condominium use.”
And WoodGreen, to their credit, thought it might be nice if the diminished congregation could still attend services in a retained portion of Siddall’s building and, further, that residents of the Danforth might like architectural continuity.
“We came to a fairly creative solution,” continued Mwarigha, who uses only one name. “WoodGreen will buy the land from you at a discounted rate; in exchange for the land, you will get 5,000 square feet of footprint in the building [and] on that footprint you will recreate the sanctuary and a smaller church space.”
That way, the church could also continue to provide meals to those in need and services to the community at large – “I actually did go to the church to attempt to become a tango dancer [but] that did not succeed,” Mwarigha laughed – and, by careful demolition and the insertion of an eight-storey tower, WoodGreen could provide 50 residential units for seniors.
To help pay for construction, WoodGreen applied for rapid housing funding from the City of Toronto and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., and then went in search of a “turnkey builder” experienced in prefabrication. And while there was “a budding modular construction” scene, they found that Toronto-based Assembly Corp. “could help us manage that interface between the production and the actual buildup,” Mwarigha said.
Assembly was raring to get started, but some endangered chimney swifts had other plans, said project lead Justin Spec: “They have a specific nesting season and you can’t do anything leading up to it,” he said. “And then you can’t do anything for the whole summer [until] they migrate away and you have a certain time period where you can cap the chimneys.”
First observed in July, 2023, the team waited until June, 2024, to confirm the nests; in October, 2024, a federal Species at Risk Act permit was obtained, and a new habitat, paid for by WoodGreen, is preparing to open at Evergreen Brickworks, just 1.3 kilometres away.
Interior demolition of Danforth Church is under way and should be done by mid-April. The geothermal system will be installed in May, foundations prepared in July and the new building should be up by mid-September. Hard hatted and safety booted, Mr. Spec and I walked through the church to see the progress last week. We stopped at the point where Siddall’s and Brown’s buildings meet.
“A piece of this tower gets taken off, then framing a flat wall on the back side that our building butts up against,” he said. So, while only Siddall’s square tower and doorway onto Bowden Street will be retained, it’s good that both architects will still be represented. And speaking of architects, mcCallumSather’s handsome, saw-toothed building of mass timber and cross-laminated timber panels (manufacturers are Fab Structures in Alcove, Que., and Element5 in St. Thomas, Ont.) will make its presence known on the Danforth while still respecting its elderly host.
And what will a typical day be like when, in early 2026, everything is in place?
“It is vibrating,” Mwarigha said with a smile. “The church is back in action, working to develop and facilitate the programs that they have traditionally provided during the week. On Sunday they’ve got the church service … and it’s open to tenants in the WoodGreen building … on the side door you see WoodGreen staff coming in … and all the interconnections between this integrated approach to social housing … and you see marker events happening, be it open houses, Christmas parties, Canada Day events.
“That’s the vibe.”
I can feel the vibrations already … can you?