Despite protest from community members, Ornstein Leyton is moving forward with plans to replace the a 179-year-old Upper West Side synagogue with a 14-story residential building, according to The Real Deal.
Back in September, Congregation Shaare Zedek announced they were considering such a sale, citing serious financial strains. As synagogue president Michael Firestone said at the time, unless they partnered with a developer, they’d be “left with a crumbling, abandoned building on 93rd Street.”
It was not, one might say, a universally popular move. Members of the West Nineties Neighborhood Coalition who opposed the plan expressed concerns that the project would increase traffic, and also objected to what they said was the proposal’s lack of affordable housing. To prevent the sale, they tried to get the old building landmarked, but no dice: in October, the Landmarks Preservation Commission determined the building didn’t “rise to the level of an individual landmark,” according to a letter filed with the court.
But, as TRD reports, it looks like the deal’s on. The project will include 20 condos across 39,543 square feet, plus a 9,350-square-foot community center for the synagogue on the building’s first three floors, per plans filed with the DOB. ODA Architecture’s Eran Chen is the architect of record.
The deal, TRD notes, has yet to be finalized, but the idea is that Ornstein Leyton will take over the ground lease on the property for at least $34.3 million, according to court papers.
Shaare Zedek is hardly the only religious organization partnering with developers to stay afloat. As TRD points out, a Harlem church made a deal with billionaire Moujan Vahdat to demolish the existing building and make way for a new residential complex with space for the church on the ground floor.
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