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Heritage preservation and interior demolition work is moving right along on the 1886-built Bloor Street United Church on the northwest corner with Huron Street in Downtown Toronto. The church site is being reworked to add Collecdev's Cielo Condos to it, which will rise 29-storeys above a rebuilt church, and adding 284 residential units to the neighbourhood.
UrbanToronto got a sneak peek at what is going on inside, as both the demolition and restoration proceed under the supervision of ERA Architects.
All of the stained glass windows have been covered up to protect them from the dust and debris from the interior demolition. As things have begun to be taken apart, so far, wooden slats from the ceiling of the church have been partially dismantled, revealing the structure of the building's roof in behind.
On the exterior meanwhile, shingles are being scraped off the roof.
Crews are also working on demolishing stepped risers in the sanctuary with a concrete breaking machine. Since all that is being preserved from the church is its heritage facade, all of the floors and interior walls must be removed to make way for the new structure that is to be built.
For restoration purposes, crew members are working on carefully removing the stained glass windows so that they can be taken off site to be cleaned. As part of that process, the windows will be disassembled, and all of the original putty will be removed from between each individual piece of glass, which will then soak and be washed, ahead of being reassembled as before. Only then can they be reinstalled into the church facade.
While the glass is out for cleaning, the windows will be boarded up to keep the weather and animals out.The boarding process has already begun where glass has already been removed.
Some panels of clear glass that are not part of the stained glass restoration process remain on the windows, with the growing areas of boarded up window space behind them.
One of the last things to be demolished will be the west wall of the sanctuary, It will be completely reconstructed and refurbished after the fact – once a new structure is in place – and will become a key feature of the new interior promenade atrium that will be accessed from Bloor Street.
Once the restoration is done and the building is complete, the church will be a major part of the redevelopment, not only for the local congregation, but for the denomination as a whole as the United Church of Canada will also be moving its head offices into the podium.
Heritage retention work began in April, and is planned to continue until sometime in August. The heritage retention work will also include a steel framework that will be used to support the heritage walls of the church while the remainder of structural demolition, excavation, and construction all take place inside. (While the demolition and heritage work progress at the site, an official groundbreaking of the development is not planned to take place until some time in the Fall.)
Upon completion, Cielo Condos will stand 29 storeys and bring 284 units. The building and its amenities and interiors are designed by KPMB Architects, while externally, landscape architecture is to be appointed by Janet Rosenberg & Studio.
More information on the development will come soon, but in the meantime, you can learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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