North Markham mosque eyes new home on Castlemore

Bernie O’Neill

A mosque planned for construction on 16th Avenue in Markham Village may have found a new home.

The Masjid Darul Iman appears poised to take over an existing building about a kilometre north of where congregation members had planned to build a mosque on vacant land, the Markham Economist & Sun/yorkregion.com has learned.

The former GE Digital Energy building is on Castlemore Avenue immediately east of The Brick furniture store at Hwy. 48/Markham Road.

It can become home to worshippers after a minor variance to the existing zoning was approved to add religious uses.

The application was made by building owner Bruce N. Huntley. The change allows a place of worship and removal of loading docks at the commercial building at 1330 Castlemore Ave., directly across the street from the Olive Branch church.

The GE building is on a lot larger than the mosque’s vacant 16th Avenue property. It is also farther away from residential properties and has more parking.

The congregation currently worships in rented plaza space adjacent to The Brick.

A Google search suggests the 1330 Castlemore property was slated for redevelopment as a movie theatre and big box retail. It was a project of Norstar group, which is building twin 20-storey condo towers on Castlemore Avenue just to the west.

An update to mosque members says the congregation has secured an interest-free loan from the owner. In the Muslim faith, a congregation is prevented from taking out a bank mortgage requiring interest payments.

The congregation would pay $2.1 million in installments of $720,000 over three years starting at the end of 2015.

The original 16th Avenue construction option would cost the congregation up to $9 million, according to the update, including construction of a parking deck.

The Masjid Darul Iman members could be worshipping in their new mosque on Castlemore in four to six months, the update states.

The congregation would be able to start out by using part of the building for worship and generate income through renting out the rest for offices and/or storage.

The update addresses possible costs of soil remediation for the parking lot but suggests remediation of the building is not an issue.

A discussion board at Mygreensborough.com notes that some residents in the area were aware of the minor zoning variance application on Castlemore Avenue, but did not necessarily make the connection to the mosque moving there.

“What I will say though is that the GE location would be ideal. It is huge and has a huge parking lot. Everything that residents were opposed to could be fulfilled in the GE building which happens to be directly across the street from another place of worship,” wrote one person.