Posted Nov 2, 2015, 5:33 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 51,866
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http://therealdeal.com/issues_articl...it-in-the-sky/
Spirit in the sky
New York Archdiocese looks to the heavens for fiscal relief
November 01, 2015
By Adam Warner
Quote:
Worshipers attending the Mass celebrated by Pope Francis at Madison Square Garden received more than a blessing. They also got a handout urging their support for a change to New York City’s policy for transferring valuable air rights. The Archdiocese of New York is in the midst of a very public campaign to have any Midtown East rezoning allow it to sell the development rights over St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“Enabling the archdiocese to sell … air rights would not only safeguard the future of the physical landmark, but it would also strengthen the archdiocese’s ability to sustain and expand its robust charitable, pastoral and educational programs,” the flyer read.
The zoning changes the Church wants would create a special district giving owners of landmarked properties a green light to sell their air rights to developers whose sites are not adjacent to their buildings. St. Patrick’s has about 1.2 million square feet of air rights, which could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
$22 million
Amount that Houston-based developer Hines paid to St. Thomas Episcopal Church on West 53rd Street for 275,000 square feet of air rights in 2007. That’s a rate of $80 per square foot, which is markedly low for the area. The air rights were used for the construction of the Jean Nouvel-designed MoMA tower.
19%
Portion of the 368 New York Archdiocese parishes merged or closed in August as part of the Catholic Church’s consolidation. As of Aug. 1, 112 parishes were combined into 55 new ones. The Church now has 296 parishes, compared to 409 parishes 10 years ago.
$1.1 billion
Amount in damages sought by Grand Central Terminal owner Andrew Penson in a lawsuit against the city and 1 Vanderbilt developer SL Green Realty. Penson claims SL Green should have been forced to buy Grand Central’s air rights before getting the city’s approval to build its 1,501-foot-tall office tower next door. It estimates the landmark’s roughly 1.2 million square feet of air rights are worth about $880 per square foot.
14
Number of NYC landmarks that have successfully transferred air rights under the program known as 74-79, which dictates the transfer of development rights from landmark buildings. All were in Midtown or Downtown. Among them: Rockefeller Center, the Seagram Building and India House. In total, that’s nearly 2.6 million square feet of space.
33 million
Estimated square footage of unused development rights now held by Manhattan landmark buildings located south of Central Park. That’s roughly equal to 12 Empire State Buildings, or 33,000 1,000-square-foot apartments.
2+ million
Combined square footage of unused air rights at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church on Park Avenue and Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue, three of the NYC’s most renowned religious landmarks. The air rights could be worth anywhere from $400 million to $1.1 billion.
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