More than a decade after being destroyed in a fire, the newly built Aurora United Church steeple is standing tall once again.
A crowd of congregation members and curious residents gathered on Yonge Street this morning to watch as a crane raised and lowered the church’s new main steeple into place.
“Many didn’t believe the church was going up,” said Brian North, chair of the church’s building committee. “But now we have those two steeples up, everybody in the town will now see, ‘Yes, the church is coming back.’”
Aurora United Church’s steeple gets installed at its new location pic.twitter.com/VwRVyzB18a
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Congregation member Janet Thacker came with her grandchildren to see the steeple being installed.
“It was cool but it was scary, I thought it was going to fall, it was scaring me,” said Beau Kelly, 9, Thacker’s grandson.
Thacker’s family has a long history with the church, her grandparents, the Fierhellers, were longtime members of the church. Thacker herself plays bells at the church and was started attending again years ago, as she wanted to "carry the tradition" of her family.
“We’ve been waiting for it, and I hoped that I would have my little grandsons here. My grandparents were members of the church since the '20s and very active until their deaths. My mom was a soprano soloist until she moved to Toronto,” she said. “Aurora United, we have roots basically.”
Thacker said her mother, Lorraine Fierheller, was hit particularly hard on hearing the news of the church burning down.
Rev. Lorraine Newton-Comar, minister of worship, said the steeple being installed was a “historic” moment for the church, which always had trouble with its steeples on windy days at the former church.
“It says something about stability, not only for the towers but for our congregation. It really felt today, we’ve said this among ourselves, once the steeple was up it would really be a marker in time. You can see, today was an especially important day.”
It’s been more than a decade since the old church burned down on April 11, 2014, with congregation members worshipping at nearby Trinity Anglican Church in the interim.
Ground was broken on the project in July 2021. Since then, construction work has been ongoing near the intersection of Yonge and Tyler streets, with cranes looming overhead in recent weeks as the new church slowly starts to take shape.
The site is also set to be home to Amica Senior Living, a terraced, seven-storey, 148-suite retirement home over a single level of parking.
“It’s very exciting and it’s just been such a long journey, but we’re here and we’re a year away from going in. It was wonderful to see people from the congregation here and people from the community, just walking by and wondering what was happening,” said Rev. Andrew Comar.
In April, the church launched a fundraiser, Rising from the Ashes, with a goal of rising $5 million to help cover some of the remaining costs of the project, mainly the interiors.
“We’ve had a great response from within our congregation, I mean $5 million is a huge goal, so fingers crossed and going as we go,” said Nancy Kerswill, chair of the church council. “We’ll complete what we can with the money that we have and as more money comes in, we’ll finish as we go.”
The church is eyeing a June 2025 opening date, which should go ahead even if the fundraising campaign does not reach its goal.
Kerswill said that the main floor will be finished, the church will have its sanctuary and “everything we’ll need for welcoming for worship,” although some office space and basement areas may still need to be worked on depending on how fundraising goes.
Next steps for the project will be installing the siding and glass along the outside of the building before the winter, to ensure the interior work can be done during the colder months, according to North.
That will allow for elements like five stained glass windows that were salvaged from the burned church to be hung. Those will be visible from inside and outside the church, according to North.
“I feel like that will feel like another real milestone,” added Kerswill.
