KAWARTHA LAKES-When the United Church on Lindsay Street closed it’s doors many wondered what would happen to the beautiful old building.
Enter Linden Mackey, owner of Mackey Funeral home in Lindsay. He purchased the church in December 2016 and spent abut 9 months renovating it.
Today it blossomed into the Kawartha’s newest event venue called Celebrations Lindsay. Celebrations is the Kawartha’s newest events venue and is open for weddings, recitals, celebration of life or private seminars and functions. There are two main event spaces on two floors that can hold up to 300 people. Mackey maintained much of the churches unique charm including the stained glass and some of the pews. The grand opening was held Thursday afternoon.
According to the Statistics Canada General Social Survey, the proportion of Canadians 15 and over who attend religious services at least once a week decreased from 30% in 1985 to 21% in 2005.
Churches are closing their doors all across Ontario as the number of members decline. These closures leave a number of surplus churches that face demolishment, abandonment or re-use according to a study done in 2013 at Ryerson University. The challenge of heritage church conservation was recognized as a national problem in 2008 and lead to the creation of the National Roundtable on Endangered Places of Faith.
The Ontario Heritage Trust Places of Worship Inventory lists 64 places of worship in the City of Kawartha Lakes with 5 of them having heritage protection. The City of Kawartha Lakes Official Plan outlines policies that encourage the conservation of significant built heritage resources and cultural heritage landscapes and promotes heritage master planning.
In the Ryerson study, Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist and United Churches were inventoried in the municipalities of City of Kawartha Lakes, Chatham-Kent, Prince Edward County to determine what usually happens when rural churches close. The report states;
“The findings show that adaptive re- use is by far the most common outcome, followed by demolition and vacancy. In addition, the findings indicate low municipal heritage designation rates among rural churches even though they represent some of the oldest architectural landmarks in Ontario. This study calls on heritage planners and communities to plan for the future of their rural religious heritage to ensure that churches of historic and community value are both conserved and re-used for future generations to come.”
“It’s … all over North America and often major churches are looking at empty buildings or buildings that are so expensive to maintain that they’d have to give them up,” Don Menard, Heritage Planner with the City of London told researchers at the University of Western Ontario. “Although we would prefer for the church to remain used as church, where that’s not possible, I think it’s preferable to have the building, especially when it has some heritage character … be saved and repurposed to something else,” he said.
Churches are being re-purposed into homes, apartments, restaurants, doctors offices and even spaces. Celebrations Lindsay is the latest church to find a new life while respecting it’s heritage.
For more information click here: https://www.celebrationslindsay.com
