When AvranceCorp’s name first appeared on the transfer papers in August 2023, the headline felt like a hinge being turned.
The estate at 3100 Weston Road—long known to older neighbourhood residents as Rivermede, and to many others for the Marian Shrine of Gratitude, was more than a parcel of land.
It was a layered place: a 1930s Tudor-Revival estate set in the Humber River valley; a monastery and school site for decades; and a shrine that drew visitors for prayer and quiet reflection. Those layers made the sale a story that would unfold at the intersection of heritage, faith, community activism, and urban need.
The years before the sale had already tattooed the property with stories. Rivermede’s main house and its terraced gardens were the work of an earlier Toronto era, built in the early 1930s for the Gardiner family and sited deliberately on the valley’s slope so the river and trees felt like part of the home. In 1958, the Ukrainian Basilian Order acquired the estate; for much of the latter 20th century the monastery and its associated school anchored a pocket of spiritual life and social service in the north end of the city. Out of that spiritual stewardship grew the Marian Shrine of Gratitude: a carefully landscaped devotional terrace with statues, stonework, and volunteer caretakers who tended the site and kept it open to strangers and worshippers alike.
When AvranceCorp’s purchase became public in 2023, reaction split along predictable lines. Some residents and advocates saw opportunity: a major site close to transit and open space could be a place for new, denser housing in a city that desperately needed it. But others saw loss. The possible erasure of gardens, of quiet prayerful spaces and historic architecture. Some rallied quickly. The Marian Shrine attracted petitions and vocal campaigns to preserve its stone terraces; local councillors and heritage advocates began poring over the property’s past in search of legal levers to protect what the community valued.
But few knew just how difficult the decision of the church to sell 3100 Weston Road actually was. Looking at an Aug. 16, 2023 St. Basil the Great of St. Josaphat press release, the church noted several factors in the decision to sell, including declining membership and the realization that the Basilian monastic community was “no longer viable.”
“The decision to close the Basilian Apostolate in the Toronto area was not made lightly,” the release said. “After several years of preliminary discussions and much prayer and reflection, a resolution to close this Apostolate was passed at the Order’s Provincial Chapter in February 2016 and was confirmed by the General Superior of the Basilian Order in Rome, along with his Council.”
“This resolution was also carried forward and passed at the Order’s Provincial Chapter in February 2020 and was once again confirmed by the General Superior of the Basilian Order in Rome, along with his Council.”
Armed with iron-clad approval from all levels of its hierarchy, the church implored its membership to find more constructive ways to be of service other than protesting, acknowledging that “public access to the monastery grounds (including the ‘prayer garden’, ‘shrine’, etc.) is restricted as it becomes the private property of the new owners.”
In the church press release, the church informed its congregation that “the religious articles in the prayer garden (i.e., Stations of the Cross, candle stands, statues, etc.) will be reverently removed from the site and, if possible, donated to other groups that can make use of them. In other words, the “Shrine” is permanently closed.”
Meanwhile, AvranceCorp began the familiar, slow work that follows any large acquisition: environmental and heritage assessments, site surveys, meetings with city planning staff, and outreach to community groups. Public records and city staff reports that followed in late 2024 and early 2025 would describe the house and grounds in technical language, architectural features, landscape assets, floodplain boundaries, but the conversations in community halls and church basements were about memory and access: would people still be able to walk the paths behind the sanctuary? Would the stonework of the shrine be kept intact? Could new housing co-exist with the quiet that had drawn generations to the site?
Heritage advocates pushed the city of Toronto to formally evaluate the estate for protection. Neighbourhood volunteers kept maintenance going at the shrine and organized vigils and petitions. City councillors fielded calls from constituents and prepared motions that referenced both the architectural value of the house and the cultural significance of the shrine. This was not a simple developer vs. community story; it became a layered civic negotiation about what gets preserved, what gets repurposed, and who sits at the table when those decisions are made.
For AvranceCorp, the practical imperative was pressing: Toronto needs housing, and large sites near transit and natural amenities are rare. Over the next year the company advanced proposals that tried to thread that needle, designs that concentrated new units on less sensitive portions of the parcel, landscape plans that preserved tree corridors, and promises of community space.
By late 2024 and into 2025, those proposals hardened into formal plans and public engagement processes. At the same time, municipal staff issued notices and background reports that documented Rivermede’s architecture and landscape history, which in turn shaped what elements of the site the city signaled it wanted to see retained or commemorated in whatever comes next.
And in a November 2024 development that local media never saw coming, an agreement was forged by church leader Angela Carboni and AvranceCorp Development CEO Samuel Babarinde.
That agreement, which granted Carboni and the church members use of the 3100 Weston Road grounds two days a month, recently celebrated its first anniversary.
Today, many eyes remain on the 3100 Weston Road grounds. But as time has passed, hope and expectations have increased in a challenging Canadian financial climate.
By the end of the period that started with the purchase of 3100 Weston Road by the church in 1958 to the 2023 sale to AvranceCorp, the story of 3100 Weston Road had become a case study in how cities evolve. A single estate, its house, its monastery history, its shrine, and its treed grounds, prompted debates about historic preservation, about who benefits from redevelopment, and about the moral responsibilities of developers working on culturally charged land.
AvranceCorp continues to work towards its goals of affordable housing with its various projects at 3100 Weston Road.
The torch has been passed. And AvranceCorp Developments is prepared to run with it.
About AvranceCorp Developments
AvranceCorp Developments is a Toronto-based real estate development company with a $4B+ portfolio and 7,000+ residential units in active development. Guided by urban planning principles and a commitment to innovation, AvranceCorp delivers communities that balance affordability, sustainability, and investor value.
Media Contact
Kenai Andrews
Director, Media & Investor Relations
AvranceCorp Developments
📧 kenai@avrancecorp.com
📞 647-368-8888
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