All Saints in downtown Hamilton is to be sold to make way for condominiums:

Ten years ago, workers spent months carefully dismantling the bell tower at All Saints Church in downtown Hamilton.

Now the stage is set for all the stones at All Saints to come tumbling down.

The church has commanded the southeast corner of Hamilton’s royal intersection since the 1870s.

But at King and Queen, as at churches everywhere, times have changed. Since the ’60s, pews have emptied out. Too many churches, not enough people.

Back in 1974, somebody made a firm offer to buy the All Saints property for $350,000. The congregation turned it down. Bishop John Bothwell was not amused:

“For a couple of hundred people to maintain this enormous building, when there are three or four other Anglican parishes within a few blocks with similar depleted congregations and enormous buildings, seems to me to be questionable,” the bishop said then.

That last paragraph is an interesting statement and one that will undoubtedly be applied to the 4 Niagara ANiC buildings if the diocese ends up winning them; after all, there are considerably fewer than a couple of hundred people in all 4 diocesan parishes put together.

The Spectator article goes on to say that the condominiums will be affordable housing that will be sold at cost. What the article does not say is how much the diocese is making from the sale; I wonder if it’s enough to cover the $220,000 in legal fees incurred while suing the 3 Niagara ANiC parishes?