Crumbling Upper West Side church sues to evict nonprofit as it seeks $33.5M sale

West-Park Presbyterian needs to promote the 140-year-old constructing to developer Alchemy for $33.5 million.
Daniel Shapiro

The battle over the landmarked, however crumbling, West-Park Presbyterian Church at Amsterdam Ave. and West 86th St. has moved onto a second entrance: Manhattan Supreme Court docket.

The tiny congregation needs to promote the 140-year-old constructing to developer Alchemy for $33.5 million. As Realty Test beforehand reported, the church has appealed to the Landmarks Preservation Fee to revoke its landmark standing on hardship grounds. The LPC is anticipated to think about the applying quickly after Labor Day.

Alchemy would raze the church to construct a 20-story residence constructing that would come with a big neighborhood middle and a brand new facility for worshipers — a transfer fiercely opposed by native preservationists. A number of the activists’ views from their flats can be blocked by the brand new constructing.

Now, the congregation is suing the Middle at West-Park, a nonprofit arts facility that may be a tenant on the location, for attempting to increase its “null,” “void” and “unenforceable” lease, which expires in December.

The church argues within the swimsuit that the lease, which was signed in 2018, doesn't give the humanities middle a unilateral proper to resume or lengthen it. It furthermore claims that the middle is in arrears on lease and has failed to boost funds to revive the ruined constructing because it pledged to do — which was a key situation for giving it the far-below-market lease.

The church says it could take at the very least $50 million to restore the church, which has been surrounded by scaffolds for 20 years.

J.C. Rice

The church says it could take at the very least $50 million to restore the church, which has been surrounded by scaffolds for 20 years and has been closed by the Division of Buildings a number of occasions.

A church supply known as the humanities middle’s transfer “hypocritical. The Middle was set as much as assist save the church [by raising restoration funds]. Having failed, they’re now attempting to cease the church from doing what is required.

“The constructing is actually falling aside,” the insider mentioned.

 A lease extension, if the court docket dominated in favor of the humanities middle, wouldn’t seemingly thwart the sale though it might have an effect on the timing of demolition.

The Middle, backed by Council Member Gale Brewer and a number of other native activists, has not but responded in court docket.

However the group’s lawyer, Michael S. Hiller, mentioned the lease “expressly grants the Middle the unilateral proper to increase the lease phrases for 5 years.”

He mentioned the “bogus allegations” within the lawsuit are a “subterfuge by the congregation to keep away from the guarantees and representations it made and to reap an financial windfall” by promoting the constructing.

Brewer, who led the marketing campaign to landmark the church 10 years in the past, mentioned, “Again and again, metropolis landmarks are threatened … [by]  builders whose urge for food for financial achieve appears insatiable.”