West End Collegiate Church’s landmarked Upper West Side space is set to become a multifaith hub.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has inked a three-year lease for 40,000 square feet at West End Collegiate Church’s facility at 245 West 77th St, where it will share space with the owner, the Collegiate Church of the City of New York.
A third, unidentified religious organization, which will use it on Fridays and Saturdays, has signed a term sheet for the space, but has yet to sign a lease.
The price for the lease was not disclosed. The agreement gives the LDS Church, informally known as the Mormon Church, 30,000 square feet of its own dedicated space in the building, with the rest of the lease covering communal spaces, including the chapel, gym, kitchen, and other rooms.
OPEN Impact Real Estate, a woman-owned company specializing in nonprofit real estate, represented the landlord. Mark Zussman of CBRE represented the tenant.
While the exact terms of the deal have not been revealed, Stephen Powers of OPEN told The Real Deal that the deal “was done in the spirit of partnership,” ensuring “it’s affordable for all sides.”
The shared space model “maximizes the use of large multi-purpose spaces which frequently are underutilized on many religious campuses,” Powers said.
The last tenant at the space was a church-affiliated school, which vacated the space in 2018. The church used the space intermittently in the following years before putting it on the market nine months ago.
The churches will share the 500-seat chapel on Sundays, with religious services taking part at different times. Smaller services and gatherings will take place in each denomination’s dedicated portion of the building. Each church will have its own dedicated entrance to the complex, which includes several buildings.
The lease marks an intersection between two sects with historic ties to New York. The Collegiate Church of the City of New York is considered the oldest continually worshiping church in America. The congregation was founded by Dutch settlers in Manhattan in 1628.
The LDS Church was founded in 1830 in Fayette, New York.
The West End Collegiate Church building, one of four congregations of the Collegiate Church, was designed by the historic architectural firm McKim, Mead, & White in 1892. The Dutch Colonial-style building, which includes three Tiffany Studios-designed stained glass windows, was designated as a landmark in 1967.