SFCS to buy Grace United Church

Jeff Green | Apr 07, 2011

Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS) have secured a deal for a lease-to-purchase agreement to move their seniors’ programming and administrative offices to the former Grace United Church in Sydenham.

This will create the first permanent home for the 20-year-old agency, which is now focussing its efforts on providing services for seniors and social supports for working families in South Frontenac.

Until now, SFCS has been based at a rental property in Sydenham, which is called the Rural Visions Centre. They also provide programming at the United Church manse in Harrowsmith, but are planning to consolidate their operations at the Grace United Church.

The church held its final services on May 16 of last year. Negotiations with SFCS commenced in October and the plan went public in an article in the News in November of last year.

“We have a community partnership with the YWCA of Kingston for this venture,” said David Townsend, SFCS Executive Director, “and Anne Kloosterman from the Y is here with us tonight.”

Townsend estimated that the cost of purchase and renovations at the church would come to about $300,000. “We will be fund-raising, seeking grants, and using our reserve funds to come up with that money over time,” Townsend said.

For the first phase, he said $100,000 would be needed.

His request to South Frontenac Council was modest, however.

“We ask that the township provide us with a grant of $2,000 each year for five years so we can cover municipal taxes, and continue to forego the money that the township has not been receiving in property taxes for the 140 years that the church has been on that site,” he said. (Churches do not pay property taxes in South Frontenac)

Joan Cameron, the chair of the Board of SFCS, also asked that the township appoint a member of council to sit on the SFCS Board.

Mayor Davison said the timing of the grant request was good because council will be finalising its budget. “In about a week so we will work your request into our thinking.”

Final approval for the lease-purchase agreement is expected by the middle of April, and SFCS hopes to be offering programming in the church by July 1.