For decades, Finegold Alexander has designed multiple church-to-residential conversion projects. Reasons for church decommissioning range from building disrepair (due to fire in the case of an early Finegold Alexander project at 2 Clarendon Square in 1982) to declining or shifting populations. The design interventions range from interior gut renovations to building expansions with contemporary additions. In each instance, the church building takes on a new life while maintaining much of its historic detail.

These adaptive reuse projects — like 19 Highland Avenue in Newton; The Lucas and La Victoire in Boston; and 260 High Park in Toronto — started as churches that stood empty and now hold residential units that contribute to the housing stock of their respective cities. After façade stabilization and restoration, a key factor in the conversion projects is maintaining major components of the original church’s massing when viewed from the street. These landmarks often served to anchor their neighborhood block, and the new residential conversions seek to honor the distinguished presence of the original buildings.

To better illustrate the additions and changes that we’ve created, our developer team put together a series of GIFs for a few of these projects.

In Newton, MA, the former Swedenborg, Gothic Revival-style church at 19 Highland Avenue, will be converted to four floors of high-end residential units. The design adds to the interior of the church without adding too much new volume so as to not disturb the original design of the historic church. A welcoming courtyard will join the converted church to a new eight-story residential building adjacent on the site.

At La Victoire at 25 Isabella St. in Boston, the existing church was gutted to leave only the exterior masonry walls still standing. A seven-story insertion to the building shell will be made with modern, complementary materials, including triangular bays inspired by arched windows of the original nave.

Similar to 19 Highland Avenue, the 260 High Park Avenue project in Toronto’s High Park neighborhood retains as much of the existing building fabric as possible, while expanding on the site to create 70 condominium units. Finegold Alexander Architects designed the conversion of the church section of the site to include 15 loft-style units, saving the large windows with original stained glass, private balconies on the church towers, and soaring interior spaces.

At The Lucas in Boston, our design for the conversion utilized the vertical space left by removing the deteriorated roof and interiors. The final design added a modern expansion to the stone walls of the historic 1874 German Trinity Catholic Church with a striking steel and glass design.