United Church bunks with Presbyterians in temporary office

Starting in December, The United Church of Canada will begin temporarily sharing an office with the Presbyterian Church in Canada while it waits to move into a new location that is still under construction — and now mired in controversy.

The completion date for the new national office in downtown Toronto is still unknown, but the United Church is tentatively set to move there in late 2026. The denomination signed a lease in 2024 with the Anglican and Presbyterian churches to share office space at 300 Bloor St. West, but the Anglican Church has now hired an accounting firm to investigate its internal approval process for that agreement, with officials saying they were blindsided by the cost.

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The United Church’s temporary move to the Presbyterian office in east Toronto comes as the lease at its current office in the city’s west end was set to expire this coming February. “The hope had been that by the time this lease concluded, 300 Bloor St. West would be ready for occupancy, but it is clear now that it will not be,” United Church senior governance lead Cheryl-Ann Stadelbauer-Sampa said last spring.

A proposal brought to the General Council Executive stated that bunking with the Presbyterians in east Toronto is expected to save the United Church $500,000 in one-time rental costs in 2026. This is compared to extending its lease at the office building where the denomination has rented space since 1995.

Stadelbauer-Sampa said that post-pandemic, many United Church staff now work from home. “What we know is that we have more space than we need currently, that space is underutilized, so that did not seem like good stewardship,” she said.

Rev. Victor Kim, principal clerk at the Presbyterian Church in Canada, told Broadview over email that the denomination is looking forward to sharing an office with the United Church. “In a way this will be a bit of a precursor to the more formal working arrangements at the new offices,” he said. “I’m sure there might be some challenges as we work to try to accommodate the needs of the UCC staff, but I’m confident that we’ll find solutions that will work for all of us.”

The Anglican Church’s participation in the office-sharing agreement remains uncertain. The denomination has hired an accounting firm to look into how the 2024 lease was approved. At its General Synod in June, officials alleged that former general secretary Alan Perry and treasurer and chief financial officer Amal Attia signed it without approval from General Synod. Perry’s employment as general secretary ended without explanation in September.

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According to Anglican Journal reporting, estimates in the denomination’s 2024 financial statements suggest that the total cost of the five-year lease was about $8.18 million, with $3 million in construction costs and yearly costs estimated at $960,000 to $1 million in base and additional rent.

This is compared to an estimated net cost of $250,000 a year for the existing office that the Anglican Church owns on Hayden Street in Toronto, a number that takes into account the rent it receives from two on-site non-profits.

But Harry Li, the United Church’s executive officer of finance, told Broadview last summer that the Anglican numbers related to the new space are wrong.

He declined to share the base rent for the office, which is just the occupancy fee and doesn’t include the tenant’s share of the building’s operating expenses (covered by additional rent), but said Bloor Street United and the General Council Office agreed to the base rent in 2012. Bloor Street is honouring the same rate, which is below the current market rate, he said, and the United Church is passing along that benefit to its subtenants.

Li mentioned that the construction costs are being overstated: “This cost would be amortized over the useful life of the entire leasehold improvement period. So that’s typically ranging from 10 to 15 years.”

He also said he was surprised to hear about the controversy. “From our perspective, we followed the process strictly. And the other thing to add is before the lease agreements were signed, each denomination hired their own legal consultant and spent considerable time reviewing the lease agreement,” he said.

“But we really respect the Anglican Church’s internal process and affirm the importance of transparency and accountability in all ecumenical partnerships.”

With files from Gillian Steward

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Emma Prestwich is the digital and United Church in Focus editor at Broadview.

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