Latter-day Saints Lease 40K SF at West End Collegiate Church
By Abigail Nehring January 12, 2024 1:22 pm
reprints
Co-worshipping is the new co-working.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) signed on to share space with other church-goers at the landmarked West End Collegiate Church on the Upper West Side.
The LDS Church signed a three-year lease for 40,000 square feet that it will share with West End Collegiate worshippers in the 131-year-old house of worship at 245 West 77th Street, according to West End Collegiate broker Open Impact Real Estate. News of the lease was first reported in The Real Deal.
A spokesperson for Open Impact declined to provide the asking rent.
LDS Church will relocate to the Upper West Side space while it renovates its 125 Columbus Avenue temple over the next three years, the church announced last year. The Lincoln Center temple was the second LDS church built in New York after founder Joseph Smith organized the church in a town upstate in 1830.
A spokesperson for Open said LDS Church will hold services in the West End space in the afternoons and the two congregations will share about 10,000 square feet of communal space, including the church sanctuary, gym, multipurpose room, kitchen and chapel.
The two churches “came up with their own agreement that worked and was fair for both sides,” the spokesperson said.
West End Collegiate is also in talks with a third religious group that may join the interfaith space, the spokesperson added.
The space was previously occupied by a parochial school affiliated with West End Collegiate, which departed in 2018, TRD reported.
Open’s Stephen Powers, who arranged the deal for West End Collegiate with Lindsay Ornstein, Amy Lawrence and Julia Fish, said in a statement that the parish wanted to use the vacated space in a way that supported its “programmatic and financial goals.”
“The rare combination of a dedicated entrance and access to multiple public assembly spaces appealed to many religious and cultural organizations,” Powers said. “We are thrilled to have helped implement a shared space model that maximizes the use of large multipurpose spaces which frequently are underutilized on many religious campuses.”
CBRE (CBRE)’s Mark Zussman brokered the deal for LDS Church. A spokesperson for CBRE declined to comment.
Abigail Nehring can be reached at anehring@commercialobserver.com.
