"The jarring sound of jack hammers has replaced the sweet sounds of the Riverdale Presbyterian Church choir on Pape Avenue. In a few months a handful of affluent city folks with a stylish bent will begin filling some of the 32 new condominium units going up in the cavernous space that for nearly 80 years was home to a dedicated congregation."
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"As congregations shut down or move out of the city, developers are moving in, converting houses of worship into lofts of luxury."
"The gradual secularization of Canadian society has been recorded for years. Between 1946 and 2001, the proportion of adult Canadians attending regular religious services dropped from 67 percent to 20 percent, according to Statistics Canada."
"But only in the last few years have developers begun to enter the scene. There are three completed church conversions in the city - two near Yonge Street just north of Bloor and one near Queen and Bathurst Streets. There are also several church halls that have been renovated and turned into condominiums."
"Some of these transformed temples are a hot commodity, selling several years ahead of completion. Real estate insiders have been the first to snap them up."
"'It's the old saying, ' eat where the truck driver eat,' says Robert Mitchell, whose firm Mitchell & Associates is converting the former Riverdale Presbyterian Church into The Glebe condominiums. He has reserved two of the 32 units for his own investment purposes and three real estate agents or brokers have also bought units.
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"The attraction of a conversion is the location, the space and the uniqueness."
"Most loft developments occur in industrial buildings located on the city's fringes. But churches sit in the heart of communities, on leafy lanes and residential streets."
"Their size and open design allow developers to carve out multiple level units with towering ceilings and arched windows running the height of the condominium."
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"'Church converted lofts are 'character properties'," says Lynn Robinson, an associate broker who is waiting to take possession of one of The Glebe units this fall."
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"'People's eyes light up when I mention it', she says. 'A church touches an emotion in people.'"
"The concept of living by the alter where thousands of people were baptized, married or eulogized may seem strange to some. But the holiness of the church is removed when the building is deconsecrated and the congregation moves out."
