The Transformation of St. James Anglican Church in Downtown Ingersoll

Thursday, 3 December 2020 16:55

The iconic 150 year old building is being transformed into a brand new micro brewery, restaurant and multi use event known as The Oxford.

INGERSOLL - The former St. James Anglican Church in the town of Ingersoll is in the process of becoming a brand new micro brewery, restaurant and multi use event.

Toronto Property Redeveloper Apostolos Sigilas bought the property earlier this year. He says he knew right away the 150 year old building had tremendous potential.

"When you go to Tuscany and Florence and we see these historic buildings that are thousands of years old, castles or churches that are converted into hotels and bistros and restaurants and wineries and I'm thinking, if they are doing this, why aren't we doing this. When I saw the St. James Anglican Church was for sale, I nearly fell off my chair, it's a beautiful building, it reminds me buildings in Florence or the Greek Islands, so I thought this was a wonderful opportunity."

The Church is being rebranded as the Oxford and will hopefully have new tenants in place this March be ready for customers this summer. Sigilas says COVID-19 changed a lot of their plans, as they wanted to have a number of events this past summer.

"This is somewhat turn key with a commercial kitchen, most of the renovations that would have to be done at this place are cosmetic."

Sigilas says he is already in love with Oxford County and hopes this inspires future projects like this.

"I'm from Toronto, I'm a new comer to Oxford County, I think the County has done a great job of maintaining there historic buildings and culture. Ingersoll alone has 4 massive churches like this, so there is a lot of opportunity out there. The easiest thing to do would be to tear this down and build condo's and it would be much more profitable for me to do that but I think that with some financial savvy, we can re-purpose this and this could be the stepping stone more many similar projects."

Apostolos says it has become his passion to find structures on the brink of demise and give them a second life instead of demolishing them to build more condos. You can listen to the full interview with him below: