The Statement of Significance for 296 Broadview Avenue (City of Toronto, October 4, 2012) explains:
"The property at 296 Broadview Avenue is worthy of inclusion on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties for its cultural heritage value. Anchoring the southwest corner of Broadview Avenue and Mount Stephen Street, the site contains the building historically known as Broadview Avenue Congregational Church (1894).

Broadview Avenue Congregational Church is an important surviving example of a late 19th century religious building designed for a Congregational body in Toronto, which has remained in religious use since its construction in 1894. The church is an institution of historical importance in Riverdale, the community on the east bank of the Don River where a group of Congregationalists first established a mission in 1881.

The building is an unusual but significant example of a late 19th century church where the pointed-arched openings and buttresses identified with Neo-Gothic styling are combined with a distinctive and large-scaled cross-gable roof with mock timber framing that illustrates the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Broadview Avenue Congregational Church is the oldest known extant religious building in Toronto designed by the important architect E. J. Lennox. While best known for his designs for Toronto’s Old City Hall (completed 1899) and the iconic Casa Loma (completed 1914), Lennox had a long and distinguished career during which he accepted commissions for a range of building types and styles, including churches and Sunday Schools in the city. His alterations and additions to St. Paul’s Anglican Church at 227 Bloor Street East followed the completion of Broadview Avenue Congregational Church and remain as the only other surviving documented examples of his ecclesiastical designs in Toronto. Postal Station “G” (1913), which is a listed heritage property at 765 Queen Street East, and the two pairs of semi-detached houses (1907) at 15-21 Tiverton Avenue in the Riverdale Heritage Conservation District (Phase 1), are additional projects executed by E. J. Lennox in Riverdale.

Contextually, Broadview Avenue Congregational Church stands as a neighbourhood landmark in Riverdale where it anchors the southwest corner of Broadview Avenue and Mount Stephen Street along the section of the thoroughfare between Dundas and Gerrard Streets."

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-51327.pdf