UES church sells York Ave home to Weill Cornell for $68M

One Manhattan church has had a divine revelation about the value of Upper East Side real estate.

The Church of the Epiphany recently sold its York Avenue headquarters, then turned around and bought a new location nearby on East 74th Street, in a pair of deals totaling a little more than $90 million.

“This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for The Church of the Epiphany,” said Avison Young broker Jon Epstein, who worked on a team that handled the two transactions. “The Church had been looking for a way to monetize its real estate in order to expand and enhance its ministry to better reflect the needs of the congregation.”

In one deal, the Church of the Epiphany sold the home of its Norman Gothic-style building at 1393 York Avenue for $68 million to Weill Cornell Medical College. The college plans to use the development site, which has nearly 112,500 square feet of buildable space, to build new housing for medical students, according to Avison Young.

The deal works out to slightly more than $600 per buildable square foot.

The sale enabled the Church of the Epiphany to then buy a building a block away at 351 East 74th Street from the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church for $22.5 million for its new home.

Local Upper East Side newspaper Our Town first reported news of the deals.

The Church of Epiphany will stay in its current location on York Avenue for two years while it renovates the new building. And the Avison Young brokers are working with the Jan Hus Presbyterian Church to find it a new location.

Avison Young brokers James Nelson, Charles Kingsley, Neil Helman and Toku Saito represented the Church of the Epiphany in the sale of its York Avenue property and its purchase on East 74th Street. Susan Kahaner and Jennifer Ogden of Avison Young are working with Jan Hus Presbyterian Church to find a replacement property.