If the destiny of West Park Presbyterian Church had been as much as the Landmarks Demolition Fee, the choice can be apparent: tear down the decrepit construction and construct anew.
The church signed a deal in 2022 with developer Kenneth Horn of Alchemy Properties to do precisely that. Alchemy would pay $33.4 million for the location and construct a tower — doubtless a condominium — that features a 10,000-square-foot white field house for the church and $9 million for the congregation to construct it out.
For sure, town has no demolition fee — solely a Landmarks Preservation Fee. The panel lived as much as its title, because it nearly all the time does, when it designated the church at 165 West 86th Road as historic in 2010.
How did that work out?
Since then:
- The 135-year-old constructing has remained shrouded by plywood to guard passersby from the crumbling stone, which has fashioned a reddish seashore on the shed beneath.
- The church’s congregation dwindled to 12 members and needed to hearth its pastor to economize.
- The nonprofit group created in 2016 to handle the property and restore its facade as an alternative spent seven years targeted on its arts programming whereas the worth tag for a correct renovation soared to as a lot as $40 million.
- The group was evicted final summer time after an extended, expensive battle in opposition to the church it was supposed to save lots of.
- Preservationists, celebrities, politicians and residents of the ugly buildings subsequent to the church have continued combating to put it aside — and their views.
The church’s destiny is now again in entrance of Landmarks. On Tuesday, fee members will hear the church’s case for demolition in a case being carefully watched by the actual property trade.
The preservationists, who’ve employed wily lawyer Michael Hiller and obtained ethical and presumably monetary help from actors Mark Ruffalo, Laurence Fishburne and Matthew Broderick, made their arguments at a tense listening to final fall.
Nonetheless with them is Metropolis Council member Gale Brewer. In line with Roger Leaf, a volunteer spearheading the church’s demolition effort, Brewer was instrumental in successful the landmark designation 15 years in the past by pledging to boost sufficient cash to revive it.
“The minute the constructing was landmarked, she disappeared,” Leaf, a retired finance govt, informed The Actual Deal. Brewer has publicly apologized a number of instances for her failure however insists she is going to comply with by this time, Leaf claims.
The evicted nonprofit, based in 2016 and nonetheless known as the Heart at West Park, has relocated to a different church two blocks away and appears to be doing properly there; in 2024 it had $1.25 million in property and paid govt director Debra Hirshman $335,000 (and $370,000 final yr). Nevertheless it desires to return to its former house and protect the views for 4 board members who stay subsequent door.
Hiller argues that the church’s hardship utility has met not one of the standards required for demolition of a landmark. The opponents say the church created its personal hardship by blocking repairs in late 2024 and failing to market its air rights — as if each Manhattan developer and funding gross sales dealer doesn’t know that Higher West Aspect church buildings have air rights. And this one has obtained intensive publicity.
I’ve recognized Gale Brewer for a very long time and Hiller, too. They’re good souls, and as a former historical past main, I don’t blame them or Neighborhood Board 7 or 11,000 petition signers for wanting to save lots of a constructing that from the skin seems to be historic, and lots older than its 135 years.
However the church didn’t create its personal hardship. Nature and Father Time did.
Sustaining such a construction and bringing it as much as code is an enormously costly endeavor. The $11.6 million in “commitments” that its would-be saviors declare to have would not be nearly enough, and so they haven’t any authorized rights to the property anyway.
In addition to, that they had their likelihood. The subsequent one ought to go to Alchemy.
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