Moves, as most of us know, can be a stressful time. How hard is it, then, to move church?

It’s a question to which many people are finding an answer.

Congregations, just like families, outgrow their old premises and need to find new ones.

Neil Meyers, an agent at Priority Realty, says his main expertise is land sales, but he has sold a few churches.

Shannon Oatway photos, Business Edge
Pleasant Heights, above, and Southminster (below right) have sold recently.

It started with three United Church of Canada congregations merging to form Living Spirit United Church.

“My responsibility is to sell the churches and find land when they decide what to do,” he says.

One of the United churches Meyers sold is to be the new home of First Christian Reformed Church.

“We’re able to stay in the neighbourhood where we’ve been for 50 years,” says Karl Bomhof, chairman of the church council at First Christian Reformed. His church bought Southminster United on 14A Street S.W. in Altadore, a couple of blocks from its old building at 3600 15A St. S.W.

“We had simply outgrown our existing space.”

First Christian Reformed draws 650 people to two Sunday morning services. The opportunity arose to buy Southminster United, and First Christian Reformed could stay in the community.



“We feel as a church called to that growing community,” says Bomhof. Young professionals and families have been moving to the community, people have been coming to the church, and as a mission-minded church it would be odd to move away, he says.

The United Church has some churches for sale, is supporting church expansion and is looking for land in growth areas, says Rev. Ralph Spencer, a clergyman at St. David’s United Church who chairs the Calgary presbytery’s planning and administration ministry.

Southminster and Pleasant Heights churches have been sold and Westminster and Trinity are for sale. The church is seeking land in the north and is about to make an offer in the growing area north of Country Hills, says Spencer.

Some United Church congregations have amalgamated. Southminster, Westminster and Riverview have become Living Spirit, meeting at Riverview. Pleasant Heights and Rosedale have become Wild Rose, meeting at Rosedale. Trinity in Inglewood has closed and Wesley is to close. Wesley’s trustees are considering an offer for the building.

Michael Chan, chief operating officer of the Roman Catholic diocese, says no more churches are to be closed in the next three to five years. A couple of parishes are considering expanding.

In the southeast suburb of McKenzie Towne, the city’s newest Catholic church, St. Albert the Great, seats 1,200 people and has about 2,100 families in its congregation.

“For years we under-built,” says Fr. Kevin Tumback. “Some people say we under-built here, too.”

There are three masses every weekend and the 11 a.m. Sunday mass has about 900 people. “When you look at all the development planned around us, you’ve got to plan ahead,” Tumback says.

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Calgary’s sizzling housing market of 2002 couldn’t go on forever, and this year has seen moderating trends.

“It was a crazy year,” says Calgary Real Estate Board president Rosalee Krygier. “You can’t have that all the time.”

CREB figures for March show that resale housing listings were up and sales were down compared to 2002.

Krygier says the resale housing market in Calgary is now balanced, though it is still short of single-family houses priced at less than $250,000.

CREB reports 3,365 new listings last month, compared to 3,042 in February and 3,049 in March 2002. At the end of March last year, the inventory was 3,715 units, compared to this year’s 5,261 active listings.

In March, Calgarians bought 2,137 residences, up from 1,825 in February but down from 2,344 in March last year.

In the first quarter, 5,602 homes sold through the Multiple Listing Service in Calgary and area, a decrease of about 13 per cent from 6,474 for the first three months of 2002.

For those thinking of buying a house, a major bank came out with an encouraging consumer watch report, saying that housing is still a solid investment, which is good news for those who fear that a real estate bubble is at risk of bursting.

Benjamin Tal, senior economist with CIBC World Markets, says Alberta is expected to outpace the national economy this year and there is pent-up demand for housing in Calgary.

“There is a big difference between saying that we have a bubble and we have a booming economy,” he says.