Toronto Church of Scientology | ?m | 8s

I never noticed until this weekend (and apologies if this has been mentioned before in this thread), but the Scientologists appear to have also leased space in 2 College Street (NW corner of College and Yonge). There is a small sign near the College Street entrance.
 
Yeah, it's the second (or third?) spot they've rented since vacating the yonge street location. I seem to remember one just off Queen (Peter or John, maybe?). Seems to me that renovation isn't gonna be forthcoming, and that they know that eventually the city will move to seize 696 Yonge.

With the US Church bleeding money, the Canadian church not exempt from paying taxes and overall enrolment down, I don't see any way they're likely to be able to do anything to stop it.
 
zang said:
they know that eventually the city will move to seize 696 Yonge.
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Click to expand...

Isn't 100-200 grand peanuts when you own a building of this size on Yonge street?, i think you are dreaming in thinking this property will be going to the city,
...my take is it eventually gets settled and sold out to a developer
 
Automation Gallery said:
Isn't 100-200 grand peanuts when you own a building of this size on Yonge street?, i think you are dreaming in thinking this property will be going to the city,
...my take is it eventually gets settled and sold out to a developer
Click to expand...

Maybe. If common sense ruled here, the Scientologists would already have sold this property. Also, this could be a challenging property for a developer -- a contributing property in the HCD, where the "heritage" structure takes up the entire lot, next to a residential condo that has nowhere near the expected separation distances, etc. But, yes, I see them likely being forced to sell, although the return might not be what they expect.
 
With the growth in this area in the past few years, I think that they might see it as too big an exposure to lose.

From a star article in 2013:

"Records show the building was purchased for $2 from a contractor called Plaza Investment Co. in 1979."

Meaning, they probably convinced a scientologist churchgoer to fork over a property they owned for peanuts. Any money they make (and it's obvious they haven't spent a whole lot in renovation or repair since '79) less taxes is likely to be pure profit.

I don't see any way that they can get back in there, or any logical reason for them to avoid selling and funnel that money back into the church. They likely left due to safety concerns or the costs of just running it. Church income is shrinking and yet, despite the potential money, they haven't yet and are not going to sell. They've planned this location to be one of their "Ideal Orgs" (scientology for "flagship location"). They want to hold onto it. The CBC reported last year that their Montreal La Patrie Building location (also intended as an Ideal Org) was on the brink of being seized for failure to pay back taxes. And there was a similar pattern of getting permits and not following through with regards to property standards. That building is also vacant. I can't find anything recent about whether they've paid the arrears, but it's doubtful. They very much don't "believe" that the government is legitimate, which is probably why they didn't bother paying the taxes in the first place. I tend to believe they'd find a legal stay of execution, rather than a monetary one.

From all I've seen or read about the CoS, logic and common sense aren't two things they hold dearly. I think they're likely holding out hope that they can rope in a whale who'll pay all their problems away. But in a "religion" that less than 1800 people in the entire country declare on the 2016 census, they're not likely to find the money anytime soon.

To add: They also fund the renovation of their Ideal Orgs strictly using churchgoer donations. The church itself isn't likely to sink money from their coffers into it. They want a parishioner to pay for it.
 
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Looks like they're installing a screen on the south side.
CoS.jpg
 

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I suspect at some point it was backlit and died, and an inability to scrounge the money needed to fully fix it led to the installation of an overhead.
 
I seem to recall it being a monochrome screen of some sort, displaying a cycle of text ads which was visible far down Yonge.

But that was long, long ago, and my memory isn't the greatest.
 
At the very least someone should paint the Scientology name on the building until they sell or fix it. They are sooo shameless.
 
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