A prolific Williamsburg-based developer that made headlines earlier this year when it demolished a historic church in Bedford-Stuyvesant is making moves to seize on yet another house of worship.
Watermark Capital Group is in contract to purchase Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church at 144 St. Felix St., between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue, in Fort Greene, for $15 million, PincusCo first reported. An appraiser tapped by the church had valued the property at just over $13 million, according to court documents.
The neo-Gothic church has fallen into disrepair and currently sits vacant — its worshippers now practice at Grace United Methodist Church on Seventh Avenue, less than a mile away — and is a stone’s throw from major cultural institutions and transit hubs including the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Atlantic Terminal.
The sale comes as the church was having trouble affording its costly upkeep, according to its attorney in the sale, Renato Matos, managing partner at the Manhattan-based firm Capell Barnett Matalon and Schoenfeld LLP. The Department of Buildings has slapped the landmarked structure with multiple violations over the last two decades — several of which have yet to be resolved — including for performing work without a permit and failing to address hazardous conditions, according to city records.
It’s unclear what Watermark — which is purchasing the dilapidated structure under a limited liability corporation, 144 BAM — has in store for the more-than-65,000-square-foot building. But if history is any indication, at least part of the early 20th-century house of worship could likely meet the same razed fate as some of its neighbors, such as a former church at 321 Wythe Ave. in Williamsburg that was converted into a residential building.
“We’re not sure what use they’re looking at. We’re told that it would be beneficial for the community, although they haven’t solidified quite yet what they’re doing,” said Matos.
And late last year, Watermark joined the fury for buying up land on Willoughby Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where the developer closed on a $12.3 million deal to purchase St. Lucy’s-St. Patrick Roman Catholic Church, another historic structure dating back to 1856. The developer wasted little time in moving forward with its plans, in January taking a wrecking ball to one of the buildings on the site of 295 Willoughby Ave. to reportedly make way for housing.
Under the Religious Corporations Law, Hanson Place Central’s sale is subject to the approval of either the New York Attorney General’s Office or the New York Supreme Court, according to Matos, who said in this case it would be the court.
Watermark did not return requests for comment.
Julianne Cuba , 2024-03-07 18:07:36
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