Partnership with developer saves St. Mark’s Anglican Church in Halifax

A developer is looking to preserve the history of a Halifax-area church while making a high rise.

A north end Halifax church is crediting its partnership with a high-rise apartment building developer for preserving its history.

The St. Mark’s Anglican Church, located at the corner of Gottingen Street and Russell Street in Halifax, has been operating since 1866.

“We are really blessed actually. St. Mark’s was in a situation where we were running out of money and we are not a huge congregation and we weren’t sure what our future is going to look,” said Rev. Tammy Hodge Orovec, St. Mark’s Anglican Church priest.

If it wasn’t for this partnership with the developer, the church says it would cease to exist.

“Through some ingenuity and hard work from some very faithful people here at St. Mark’s, they found a partner. Someone who was willing to buy our property so they could redevelop it but were also able to preserve the church and help us to live into the future,” said Hodge Orovec.

The developer bought the land originally owned by the church and will build a 10-storey high-rise apartment building. They will also plan to revive the church and make it more energy efficient.

“We are in a state of flux right now, our hall will be torn down and a late addition to the church at the back will be torn off, some office space, some inventory space and other than that we are preparing for a big renovation,” said Hodge Orovec.

The developer is leaving creative control of the sanctuary and worship space up to the church.

“Our basement is pretty grungy so the company is going to come in and completely strip that down. They have to take all the asbestos and things out,” said Hodge Orovec.

“Then they are going to completely renovate that. They are going to give us a professional kitchen, banquet space, hopefully spaces for offices and meeting spaces to be used by the wider community and congregation.”

“It’s absolutely wonderful. We have been working for a number of years as parish council to find ways to plan our future, looking at the financial realities and things like that and then this opportunity came and it was unexpected and really, you know, you have to think of it as a gift,” says Rev. Vivien Hannon.

This partnership has allowed the church to have creative control over changes and upgrades to the worship space and they have already made a few changes.

“We are having dinners and things like open mic events on Friday nights, once a month and people dropping in and they’re so much fun. Because of the new flexibility of our space with making the pews shorter and getting rid of some of them so we have more open space,” says Hannon.

This church has a special history in the community.

“We are the last remaining north end congregation that existed prior to the Halifax explosion, so part of our redevelopment is we are going to try and captivate on some of that history at the same time as we evolve and change and hopefully become a real community hub for the north end,” says Hodge Orovec. “Since May or March of 2022, Saint Mark’s has lived as a lease tenant in this building. We have a 50-year lease with another 50-year lease available after that. We are hopeful that we will be around for a least the next 100 years.”

The hope was for construction to begin this month but that has been put on hold. At this point there is no date in place for it to begin.

Hodge Orovec says the church is grateful for the stability and opportunity to continue to provide ministry and serve the north end.

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