Mimico group trying to have Wesley church designated a heritage property

ABOVE: The congregation from a 91 year-old church has applied to the city for redesign. Community residents want the original building to be kept in tact. Mark McAllister reports. 

TORONTO – A group of Mimico residents is hoping to designate a local church as a heritage property and in doing so help shape the congregation’s redevelopment plans.

The church has been a staple of Mimico Avenue since it was built in 1922. Now, as the congregation dwindles and ages, its users are hoping to repurpose the church into affordable housing for seniors – many of whom make up the congregation – while still maintaining key features of the church’s façade and making its worship spaces accessible.

“What’s going to be going in here is 36 units of owner occupied, seniors apartments,” Peter Shepherd, who has lived in the area for over 25 years and volunteers with the church said in an interview Thursday.

“I would say the congregation is saving this building. A lot of the external features will be preserved and there’s a number of the internal items and features will be brought into the new design and be incorporated, especially in the community space and in the sanctuary space – the stained glass windows and alike.”

The new design adds to all sides of the building at Mimico Avenue and Station Road  but does keep part of the original exterior. The sanctuary and worship space, which Shepherd said is inaccessible for much of the congregation, will be brought down to the ground level. The stained glass windows too, he said, will be saved.

On October 3, the city’s preservation board recommended the building, with the exception of the interior sanctuary, as a heritage property under the Ontario Heritage Act.

“There are a lot of factors why this deserves designation. One was the role it played in Mimico heritage, another being the architect, who was J.C.B Horwood,” said Eric Code, Horwood’s great-grandson.

Horwood architectural firm was also responsible for the Bloor Street viaduct, the former CHUM building at 299 Queen Street West and Bay buildings in Vancouver, Calgary and Victoria.

Code thinks the building should be preserved.

“It’s important to keep the historic buildings that we do still have,” he said.

And Kyle Gojic, who has lived in the area for seven years, agrees, characterizing the church as a “landmark” in the community.

“I think it’s important because it’s a very attractive building,” she said. “It helps define the neighbourhood and I think it has a really interesting history and story that tells a lot about where Mimico has been and where it’s going.”

She is part of a community group that has rallied against the church’s original redevelopment plan. They’ve set up SaveWesley.com to distribute information and produced a YouTube video to rally people to support their cause.

Gojic added that the design is “misleading” as the building will actually cover a large majority of property leaving little green space.

“So the picture is a little misleading because when you walk past the building that they are proposing, the only thing you’re going to see from the street is half a brick wall.”

She also worries that if the city allows the church to go ahead with their redevelopment plan, it will set a dangerous precedent for what is a quaint “small town” inside of Toronto.

“Piece by piece they are going to come in and consolidate properties and put up bigger and bigger buildings,” she said. “Where do families go? This has been a fairly affordable place for middle income families to come and to raise their children, such as myself and all of my neighbours.”

– With files from Mark McAllister