Saint Joseph Chapel, the Catholic church located in Gateway Plaza since 1983, is slated to close in January, according to an announcement from the parish leadership that was circulated among congregants on Thursday morning.
A letter signed by pastor Jarlath Quinn said, “the difficult decision to end the
lease was made, following careful discussion and consultation over a number of years with Parishioners, Pastors, Priests, Lay Trustees, Parish Finance Council, and the Archdiocese of New York among others.”
This was a reference to the fact that, unlike most Catholic churches in New York City (where both the building and the ground beneath it are owned by the Archdiocese), the space occupied by Saint Joseph Chapel is rented from the LeFrak Organization, the owners of Gateway Plaza. They, in turn, rent the ground beneath the building from the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA).
The letter continued that, “the cost structure of our parish has also changed dramatically, despite the unwavering generosity of our parishioners. As many of you are aware, for a number of years, the Parish has borrowed significantly (now totaling over $1.2 million) from the Archdiocese of New York to subsidize the operating expenses of the parish.”
The appears to refer to the fact that the rent paid by Saint Joseph Chapel (through St. Peter’s Parish on Barclay Street, of which the Chapel is an adjunct facility) has nearly quadrupled in the space of a few years. The dilemma now facing the Chapel dates back to 2014, when the LeFrak Organization raised the rent for the space from $22 per square foot per year to $80, boosting the total annual rent from around $70,000, to more than $260,000. This dealt a body blow to the Chapel’s finances. The jump appears to have resulted less from tough negotiating by the LeFrak team, who merely proposed a new rent they believed to reflect the space’s current value, than from an inexplicable departure from custom by negotiators representing the Archdiocese, who had always in the past proactively worked to limit rent hikes to modest increases.
These circumstances were largely unknown to Saint Joseph Chapel congregants for two years, until details began to seep out informally in early 2016. At that point, parishioners — who were being told for the first time that the Chapel might close — began to organize, in hopes of finding a way to save a house of worship to which they were passionately devoted. This group took the initiative in two ways: Reaching out directly to LeFrak, and also asking the BPCA to become involved. (The Authority, which owns the land beneath Gateway Plaza, and leases to LeFrak the acreage on which the giant residential complex sits, acts, in effect, as the landlord’s landlord and thus wields considerable influence in this situation.)
At this point, discussions began in earnest. After the personal intervention of BPCA chairman Dennis Mehiel, the LeFrak team offered to reduce the Chapel’s annual rent by more than $30,000 per year. But this proposal, while generous, would have rolled back only a small fraction of the 2014 increase. And, in the view of the leadership of St. Peter’s Parish, even this benefit paled beside the Chapel’s annual deficit of more than $300,000.
But Lefrak’s offer was also accompanied by a second, potentially more significant proposal. This overture opened the door for the BPCA to make concessions on the payments that LeFrak owes it, in the form of ground rent and so-called “payments in lieu of taxes.” (Such concessions would be couched within the broader context of the BPCA’s ongoing negotiations with LeFrak, in which the agency is offering to reduce future payments owed to it by the developer, in exchange for expanded and extended affordability protections for residential tenants.)
A LeFrak executive followed up on a negotiating session in January by writing to the parishioners who had kick-started the discussions, and also to Archdiocese of New York officials (who oversee all Catholic churches in Manhattan), that, “if the Church can approach BPCA and work out a deal where BPCA would reduce [LeFrak’s] payments to BPCA in an amount equal to the Church’s share of that ground lease rent, real estate taxes and civic facilities payments, [LeFrak] would be willing to pass that savings through to the Church and adjust the Church’s rental payments accordingly. If BPCA is not amenable to the foregoing, but is willing to give [LeFrak] some permanent credit against payments due from [LeFrak] to BPCA, [LeFrak] would be willing to pass that savings through to the Church and adjust the Church’s rental payments accordingly.”
In laymen’s terms, this appears to have been a pledge that LeFrak would convey, dollar for dollar, to Saint Joseph Chapel (in the form of lower rent) any reductions that the BPCA requested and was willing to fund in the form of diminished payments owed by LeFrak to the Authority. This offer would potentially have opened the door to reducing the Chapel’s rent back to the $22 per square foot baseline that was in place before the 2014 lease renewal, or perhaps lower.
It appears that the leadership of St. Peter’s Parish and the Archdiocese never followed up on this possibility, by requesting that the BPCA make such an offer to LeFrak. Negotiations fell apart soon afterward, as (according the multiple sources directly familiar with the situation) representatives of St. Peter’s Parish then focused on finding a way of shutting down the Chapel, rather than preserving it.
At the same time, the parishioners who had organized to save the Chapel and catalyzed the discussions between LeFrak and church officials were busy spreading the word that a house of worship they loved was in danger of disappearing. This resulted in publicity around the United States and as far away as Europe.
City Council member Margaret Chin speaks at a September 10 rally, calling upon the Battery Park City Authority to save Saint Joseph Chapel, which is facing imminent danger of closure, due to rising rents.
At a rally on September 10, help outside the Chapel, City Council member Margaret Chin recalled the role that the house of worship played as a respite station for first responders in the weeks and months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. She also noted that the space was consecrated, in 2005, by then-Cardinal Egan, as, “the Catholic Memorial at Ground Zero.”
In this context, while closed-door negotiations quietly foundered in the first half of this year, public support for saving St. Joseph’s Chapel was steadily building. This began in March, 2016, when Community Board 1 (CB1) enacted a resolution supporting, “the continued presence of St. Joseph’s Chapel in Battery Park City and hope that both tenant and landlord can reach a reasonable agreement to this end.” The same measure called upon,
“our elected officials to do what they are able to facilitate and/or mediate negotiations between said landlord and tenant, so that St. Joseph’s Chapel is legally and fiscally able to operate and remain at its present location in Gateway Plaza,” and asked, “that BPCA assist in whatever manner they can to preserve this community amenity.”
As hope faded that the Archdiocese and the leadership of St. Peter’s Parish would find a way to save the Chapel, community leaders called upon the BPCA to take over the space and preserve it as a community facility. (In addition to hosting Catholic masses, it has also doubled as a venue for Jewish services and functioned as an ad hoc community center, housing meetings for organizations such as the Gateway Plaza Tenants Association.)
Battery Park City resident and Saint Joseph parishioner Amy Koethe speaks at the October 23 meeting of the BPCA board, to urge the Authority to take over the Chapel space (which is already the Catholic Memorial to September 11), and preserve it as the Battery Park City memorial to the terrorist attacks that devastated Lower Manhattan 16 years ago — while also creating a new community facility.
At the October 23 meeting of the Authority’s board, Saint Joseph Chapel parishioner and Battery Park City resident Amy Koethe used the public comment session to urge the Authority, “to investigate the economic feasibility and community benefits of taking over and repurposing the space currently known as Saint Joseph’s Chapel in Gateway Plaza, which is also the Catholic memorial to September 11. I am encouraging the board members to preserve this historic tribute to rebirth as the Battery Park City Memorial to September 11, and repurpose it as a community center for the neighborhood, and family members of victims of September 11.”
In this scenario, the BPCA would take possession of the Chapel from LeFrak — as happened at Six River Terrace in 2011, when the World Hunger Action Center closed, and the Authority converted the space into a community facility. In that case, Catholic worship services could continue to be held there, along with multiple other civic and public uses.
There appears to be ample, recent precedent for such a move by a government agency. Multiple arms of government (including the BPCA) partnered on a complicated 2005 deal that kept the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church (which was destroyed by falling debris from the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001) at Ground Zero. That church is now being rebuilt within the World Trade Center complex, on land leased from the Port Authority. In a striking parallel to the Saint Joseph Chapel’s role as the official Catholic Memorial to September 11, the St. Nicholas Church will also function as a “National Shrine” to the terrorist attacks.
The terms of its lease with the Port Authority, which were announced in September, allow the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church to remain on government-owned land at Ground Zero for a minimum of 198 years, in exchange for a nominal rent of $1 per year. This lease also provides for one optional renewal period of an additional 99 years. Under these terms, the church’s position is secure through the year 2314. But rather than pay $297 in rent for the next three centuries, the Church also has the right to buy the space, also for a price of $1.
Whether it will be possible to reach a similar accommodation for the only house of worship in Battery Park City remains to be seen. But time appears to be running out.