The Episcopal Church has found a prospective buyer for its 12-story office building in New York, New York, and is finalizing a tentative plan to move out of the longtime church headquarters, based on sale negotiations authorized on Oct. 19 by Executive Council, the church’s governing body between General Conventions.
The buyer has not been named and the price has not been revealed, but the impending sale, if completed, would mark the culmination of decades of discussions about whether to maintain the current denominational headquarters or downsize in another location.
The Episcopal Church Center in Midtown Manhattan is commonly referred to as “815” because of its street address, 815 Second Ave. A quarter of the proceeds from its sale will be set aside to pay for temporary offices in Manhattan and, eventually, to “fund costs associated with a new permanent location for the Church Center in a metropolitan area or state to be determined,” according to the resolution adopted by Executive Council.
The rest of the proceeds, 75%, is to be placed in a new trust fund that will distribute grants for church planting, redevelopment and revitalization as part of Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s strategic framework for the church’s future, which also was adopted by Executive Council during a one-day meeting in the headquarters building.
Read it all in the Episcopal News Service