Converted churches

I saw the Saint John Shakespeare Festival's MacBeth in the Gothic Arches a few years back. The Gothic Arches is a former church building that is now used as a venue for plays, concerts and other events. A few other churches in Saint John have also closed or moved leaving buildings to be converted. One is a house, another an art gallery.

I've heard before that these sort of building conversions are more common in areas where demand for development land and opportunities are a bit more intense than Saint John. I found on the Chapters' website a book by Eva Marin called Church Conversions. The book explores 35 interesting church, monastery and convent conversions.

I also found an article on GetReligion.org discusses an instance of a Gothic style church that was converted to residential condominiums. Another article at Virgin Media about buying converted churches and various things one should consider including "be sure that the conversion has actually preserved the essence of the original space and maintained the unique ecclesiastical features."

As development pressure starts to increase in Saint John it will be interesting to see how old church buildings get new life as unique property conversions.