Faced with declining membership, aged buildings and underutilized land, churches have been transitioning their property to new uses that help reach missional goals and reflect community needs.
As the housing crisis intensifies, houses of worship across the country are trying to better understand how they can help by building affordable housing on their property.
As a researcher, I’ve been studying how congregations build housing on their property for almost 20 years. I know that a development project is a large, time-consuming and expensive undertaking. Most faith leaders are not developers, and moving from a missional idea to a completed project can be confusing and overwhelming.
There are several phases to a faith-based property development project: discernment, predevelopment, development and construction, marketing and leasing, and operations.
Once you’ve completed the first step — discernment — it’s time for predevelopment. I want to focus on this phase, because it’s crucial and is not well understood by people without experience in planning and building.
Predevelopment is where the rubber starts to meet the road. In this phase, you will clarify your goals, process and cost, along with the scope of the work.
The predevelopment phase brings into focus the conceptual, schematic and design development of the project. It tells you how possible your project is in light of feasibility studies, financing projections and construction estimates. It’s the point when the budget is refined and you learn more about financing.
What are the steps to embarking on a faith-based property development project after discernment? What happens before the groundbreaking?
Owner’s representative
A development project is a collaborative affair between property owners, developers, architects, planners, engineers, surveyors, lawyers, financing professionals, contractors, construction crews and more.
One of the first things you’ll have to do is decide whether or not you would like to work with an owner’s representative (also known as an owner’s rep). It’s not necessary to have an owner’s rep, but it can be helpful in navigating the process.
An owner’s rep is a professional who can guide you, assist you in hiring firms to conduct studies, and make sense of the work that has been completed. This is someone who can advocate on behalf of the congregation. As your advocate and consultant, the owner’s rep has the best interests of your house of worship in mind.
There are specific firms that act as owner’s representatives and are generally paid on the back end of a development deal, taking a percentage of the total cost of the project.
Architect
The next thing you’ll want to do is think about hiring an architect. Architects play a strong role in the predevelopment process. This is where you talk about the purpose and function of the space, its features, the size of the rooms, the relationships to indoor and outdoor space, circulation through the building, and other needs. With an eye to the intended programming, an architect will produce a conceptual design.
The conceptual design will be a rendering of what the building could potentially look like, but keep in mind that the actual outcome will be affected by other factors, including zoning and design regulations, as well as financing.
Feasibility studies
Next you’ll need to conduct feasibility studies. These studies determine what can be built on the property and the state of the existing buildings, as well as neighborhood and community needs. They help guide the development and are crucial to finding the right developer.
Here are some of the studies, who does them, and what they are for:
- Real estate market study. This analysis provides a landscape of the market value of properties in the area. Real estate brokers, agents and consultants can do a real estate market study.
- Architectural engineering study. This study provides insight into the structural integrity of buildings. It includes an examination of the electrical and mechanical systems, as well as the architectural integrity of houses of worship. Such studies are conducted by building or architectural engineering firms.
- Land survey. This survey is concerned with the legal boundaries of properties and delineates property lines, maps all the buildings on the property, and confirms the elevation. There are several types of land surveys (zoning, construction, mortgage, subdivision, etc.), so it is best to ask a land surveyor which studies are needed for your project. A land surveyor typically does this work.
- Historic preservation study. The historical significance of older buildings can be a factor, especially if you are considering demolition or adaptive reuse. A historic preservation study aims to document buildings’ history, architectural significance and current condition. These can be done by nonprofit organizations or for-profit companies and consultancies that specialize in historic preservation work.
- Land use and zoning. A zoning analysis identifies what’s currently allowed on a property, including restrictions on building height and density. It also can let you know whether a zoning change is necessary. A land use planning consultant can help with these studies.
Cost estimates
At this point, you’ll clarify your project’s cost, potential eligibility for government programs and grants, and sources of financing. A typical affordable housing development can have multiple sources of capital that make up the financial stack.
It’s important to say that studies and consultants can cost thousands — even hundreds of thousands — of dollars. But keep in mind that they’re a necessary part of the process and, in some cases, might be required to get financial assistance. For example, if you’re applying for federal or state funding, real estate market studies will be required.
Some municipalities offer technical assistance and capacity-building programs to help with predevelopment work. Other organizations provide a cohort-based approach that includes technical assistance, peer support and access to professionals. These programs may come with some funding to complete studies.
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Seattle, Washington, for example, is constructing both affordable housing and market rate housing with space for the church. It received predevelopment funding from Trinity Wall Street’s Mission Real Estate Development program and the nonprofit Enterprise. While the congregation raised nearly $1 million, funding from Trinity’s program was essential to completing the studies.
Development takes time, patience and money. The predevelopment phase is the point in the process to construct networks with professionals and experts, ask questions, and build trust. It’s a time to gather as much information as possible, do research and make informed decisions before construction begins.
Predevelopment might seem daunting. But if your church has discerned that affordable housing is its mission, this is when you start to make that idea a reality.
It’s not easy to be optimistic about the church these days. But Mark Elsdon is working on it.
In his book “We Aren’t Broke: Uncovering Hidden Resources for Mission and Ministry,” he argued that, well, the church isn’t broke.
In his new book, “Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition,” he makes the case that this moment poses a unique opportunity for the church to make a difference. As congregations disperse the enormous real estate holdings of the church, Elsdon sees a chance for renewal.
If congregations think of their buildings and land as assets they are stewarding rather than possessions they own, that mindset can help them transform church spaces for the community’s well-being, he said.
“Gone for Good?” is a collection of 16 essays by practitioners in many fields that addresses the question of what happens to church property when a church closes. At its core is the argument that property should be viewed as neither an albatross nor a cash cow but rather an asset that should be thoughtfully handled and used for good.
And there are likely to be a lot of property transfers in the coming years: as many as 100,000 buildings and billions of dollars in church-owned property are expected to be sold or repurposed by 2030, according to the book.
“There’s so much opportunity to think about those assets being opportunities for God’s mission to flow forth into our neighborhoods,” said Elsdon, who is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and holds an MBA from the University of Wisconsin.
If the many churches across the country that are likely to close in the coming years simply sell off their buildings and land one by one, driven only by the market, he said, “we’re going to look back and say, ‘Wow, what a huge loss of spaces that were for the social good.’”
Elsdon is the executive director of Pres House, a combination church, campus ministry and seven-story apartment building on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. He also is a co-founder (with Shannon Hopkins) and a director of RootedGood, a nonprofit that empowers institutions, social enterprises and entrepreneurs to create systemic change.
The book came out of a Gone for Good symposium hosted by Laity Lodge and the H.E. Butt Foundation in October 2022. Elsdon spoke with Faith & Leadership’s Sally Hicks about his vision for church property transition. The following is an edited transcript.
Faith & Leadership: One of the things I found interesting in the book was your sense of this as a moment of opportunity. In the foreword, Willie James Jennings writes about “a new possibility of forming life in place.” This book takes a practical approach, but there’s also a big vision for it. What is that vision?
Mark Elsdon: I’m interested in this idea that you highlight: thinking about buildings and land that churches have stewardship over as missional opportunities. Not simply vessels for a congregation, but missional, in terms of the impact they can have on the community.
In this moment of transition around church buildings and land and their use, it’s a particularly important moment to recognize the role they play in the community.
Church buildings and land are right in the middle of it all, and they’re everywhere. I think this is really critical. They’re in every city, village, town, of every size, everywhere in the nation. There’s nowhere they’re not — and there’s nowhere that they’re not changing, either.
I’m trying to be a bit reflective about that. What is the witness, the opportunity for the space that I think churches have been given the chance to steward? What’s the opportunity in the middle of neighborhoods all over the country to be those sorts of places?
It’s not that dissimilar from my previous book, where I was arguing the same thing with regard to our money. But it’s these assets that have been viewed as simply transactional, or have been actually held too tightly. Not for the good, not in a generous way, but just like, “This is ours.”
F&L: Talk a little bit about the scale of both the concern and the opportunity here. Because it might be a once-in-forever kind of thing. It’s a real wave, right?
ME: Yes. The clunky phrase I used was a “once-in-many-generations” change. Because when this stuff changes over, it’s not going back.
I like to bring it down to the scale of whatever people’s familiarity is. For example, in Madison, where I live, I use 40 out of 100 [closing]. Imagine 40 properties all over the city, everywhere — on busy streets and tiny neighborhoods, everywhere — 40 out of 100, 40% of them, closing or going empty or being repurposed.
We vote in Madison in churches. I don’t know where we’d find 40 [new] polling places. Not to mention the spiritual impact that has in the community.
It’s not just about the church. My real hope, too, is that city municipal folks will take notice, because there’s a chance to incentivize or disincentivize how this trajectory goes.
If we just let it unfold purely according to the market, just one by one, I don’t think it’s going to end real well. I think we’re going to be disappointed.
And now they’re what? Either there’s a fence around them because they’re a landmark building and you can’t do anything with them or they’re just high-end condos.
Robert Jaeger’s chapter on the Halo study found that 3.7 million people visited the 90 churches [in the study] over a year and only 9% of those visits were for worship. The other visits were for something else, often community or educational programs — food pantry, voting, Girl Scout meeting.
F&L: What do you think will move people from the mindset of crisis and worry to this sense that this is a time of unique opportunity?
ME: There is a great deal of loss. We have to recognize that this is indeed happening and is quite hard and sad, especially if you are in a church that is selling, which many people are. I never want to put this sort of glossy sheen over it, “Oh, it’s all going to be fine.”
But the Christian faith is one of death and resurrection, of death and new life, and there’s a sense that there is something beyond the next step. I don’t believe for a second God’s declining or God’s going anywhere. It’s just that the structure we’ve created that is the American church and all of our associated property, frankly, is going to change.
I do see, often, people in churches are intrigued by the question of legacy. I will often ask church members who are considering what to do with their property to envision themselves coming back to that piece of land 50 years from now. Fifty years is past the life of pretty much everyone in the room.
We are the stewards that will shape what happens 50 years from now. We can say, “Well, we’ll just let whatever happens happen. I don’t really care. As long as I have my funeral here or as long as I have my children’s wedding here, I’m fine with it.”
But if we start to envision what really is going on in this corner of our city or of our neighborhood or of our county or whatever it might be in 50 years and ask what can we be involved in right now that will lead to beautiful things happening on that land in the future, that sometimes helps.
F&L: You stress that congregations need time to envision something different. Why is that important, and why is that so hard?
ME: I just got a message today from a congregation seeking help that has 18 months of money left, and they want to do a complete redo of their whole property. And the truth is, you can’t do it in 18 months. This is not quick work.
F&L: We recently did a story about a church that wasn’t closing, but they were doing affordable housing, and it was a vision 20 years in the making.
ME: Pres House was an idea from the 1920s. It was 80 years. That’s extreme, of course. But to do the work well, it takes time. Time to listen to your community, to do the kind of discernment work that really leads to good outcomes. I think we underestimate that.
Sometimes there’s a resistance to accepting where we are, and there’s a sense of, “We can just do one more year like this, and we can just do one more year like this.” Eventually, the “one more year”— that’s the last of them. It’s hard.
Part of the reason I did the book, frankly, is to try to normalize that conversation a little bit, to try to help. Maybe it’s overwhelming, but maybe it’s a little bit of a comfort to know that there are 99,000 other churches facing the same thing. We’re not alone when we’re facing it, and it isn’t about us.
I always encourage people to think about it far earlier than they want to. To think of it more as, “What is this resource that we have to steward out to the world?” And to have those conversations going on all the time, so that when the moments do come that the change is needed, it’s not quite so revolutionary or hard to face.
F&L: Besides time, what are other key aspects of this process?
ME: Funding is definitely an issue. Funding on multiple levels — shorter term, pre-pre-development, pre-development funding, funding to do the discerning, to do the accelerator courses, to do the kinds of stuff that get people thinking differently.
There are a lot of financial resources, at least in the mainline church world, that could be used for investment money or for loans, for other funds to be pulled out of traditional investments and put to work in financing some of the development. That’s needed as well, especially if you’re going to do something interesting.
There’s a reason that affordable housing is so hard to do. It’s not easy, because you have to subsidize it. It doesn’t work on a purely market-driven method. But we also have money in the church that we could use to support some of those projects.
This pre-pre-development work is what RootedGood is working on a lot right now. We have our Good Futures Accelerator, which is a nine-month course for congregations to think about who they are, who their neighborhood is, to come up with ideas, to get creative, to test some demand and to do a space audit in their building.
We need more of that happening from more directions. There are nowhere near enough consultants, for example, to do one-on-one consulting for the number of churches that need to address this stuff. So we need to think about much more scalable, different ways of meeting that need.
Obviously, also, I talk about hope. I mean, hope is key. So again, while recognizing those sad realities, what will really move us is hopefulness that there is opportunity to do new good stuff, which I truly believe there is.
F&L: Philanthropy and government funding are two other sources you address.
ME: In my area, Madison, Wisconsin, there’s not a great deal of trust between cities and faith communities. That may be different in other parts of the country. Similarly with philanthropy, they just don’t do it. They don’t often give to churches directly.
But what this property transition moment allows for is different ways of structuring those relationships. And I would say, very broadly speaking, it’s different opportunities to, again, live out the Christian faith much more broadly and bring the gospel into people’s lives much more broadly.
As a practical example, I’m seeing a lot of churches starting nonprofit organizations that are not the church; they’re affiliated with the church. Then they have an opportunity to seek funding from foundations and funders through grants that wouldn’t go to a church.
Similarly, cities and planning departments are much more amenable, often, to working with development that’s multiuse, that isn’t just simply a traditional church worship space. So in both cases, it’s this opportunity to really broaden the network and the connection, and people all working together.
F&L: The chapter by Jim Bear Jacobs, citizen of the Mohican Nation, suggests an idea I’d never heard of before: returning the land to Indigenous tribes or organizations.
ME: I would not have published the book had I not been able to put a chapter like that in there. It was really important for me. This is a trickier, more sensitive subject for people.
I think you could argue theologically that we’re stewards of the land and that God has given us the opportunity to make use of it. But you could also argue very much historically and ethically that it was taken and so it really wasn’t ours to begin with anyway.
If we’re the church and we care about people and we care about our communities and we care about big questions, then I think we have to recognize that we’re monetizing land that was taken.
I think we have to think about that, recognize that, be aware of that, before we go ahead with it as if it’s ours. What’s our position with regard to church buildings and land? If we have a chance to right some wrongs from the past by returning it, it’s a form of reparation, a form of atoning for past sin. Why not consider that as an option?
There are lots of ways in which we can be more generous with what we have. Why do we need to hold on to it, especially if it’s not being used?
The formerly enslaved artisans who constructed First African Baptist Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, sometime after the Civil War didn’t use nails. Metal was expensive and often hard to come by for Black builders less than a generation from bondage.
The Rev. Alexander McBride, First African’s senior pastor, explained how the laborers built the church in Gothic Revival style, noted for its signature pointed arches and windows. The current building replaced an antebellum praise house, an open one-room clapboard space with little furniture so the enslaved could engage in a more mobile, joyful service removed from white surveillance and sit-quiet worship styles.
“They used the mortise-and-tenon method, where they interlock the wood. And this church has withstood every hurricane” that has rolled through the coastal city, said McBride, the 16th pastor at First African in its more than 150 years of existence.
And there have been many storms. An 1893 hurricane drowned many of the town’s Black residents, stranded in low-lying areas or swept to their deaths. But even that massive storm didn’t cause significant damage to the church, thanks to the unnamed craftsmen who may have lacked nails but had possessed the skill and wisdom to use the strongest joint known to woodworkers.
The church’s biggest current enemies are time, termites (which have eaten their way through some of the structure’s undercarriage) and moisture — largely unavoidable menaces for a century-old building in a humid seaside town.
Earlier this year, First African was among dozens of historically Black churches to win grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Those monies, through the Preserving Black Churches initiative — $4 million in this funding cycle — will support projects that recast their sites’ history through new interpretation or exhibits, grow capacity through staff hires and community outreach, and repair aging or damaged buildings.
Diversity of spaces
The grantees highlight the diversity of Black worship spaces and the history of how Black Americans have fought for religious freedom and built their own institutions amid racism and violence. They include institutions such as 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which just marked 60 years since the Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four girls and damaged the church; the elegant Black-majority Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, Virginia; one-room churches built by hand and heart; and churches in places with historically small Black populations, such as Alaska and West Virginia.
“Black churches are living testaments to the achievements and resiliency of generations in the face of a racialized, inequitable society,” said Tiffany Tolbert, the Action Fund’s senior director for preservation. “They’re foundational to our Black religious, political, economic and social life.”
In some places, a church is the only building that remains as an artifact of a Black community that no longer exists. Scotland AME Zion Church in Potomac, Maryland, not far from the nation’s capital, is one such example from a community swallowed by encroaching development and urban sprawl.
Religion scholar C. Eric Lincoln once described the Black church as the unchallenged “cultural womb of the Black community.” Fellowship halls and sanctuaries in Black churches have long functioned as multipurpose rooms, where worship and politics meet. Churches like Beaufort’s First African have been incubators for Black social enterprise; during Reconstruction, First African was the site of a school for freed people, hungry for the literacy denied them during slavery.
Numerous historically Black colleges, civil rights protests and social movements trace their origins to Black pulpits and pews. Preserving church spaces can thus have a multiplying effect, documenting as well the stories of Black communities at large and the work of Black architects, artisans and mutual aid.
Worthy of preservation
It’s commonly said that the church is “more than the building,” yet buildings are material remnants of history and culture. What kinds of meaning do church buildings have for you?
That’s the case with the Halltown Memorial Chapel, built in 1901 not far from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where abolitionist John Brown and his band of brigands in 1859 had raided an arsenal in hopes of ending slavery. The one-room chapel is small, only about 40 feet by 50 feet, with room for 13 pews. It was built of rubble stone by church members, stone masons and laborers who also constructed a nearby turnpike or worked at the local paper mill, which has since closed. Services continued there for decades, only ceasing after World War II because of a dwindling congregation. After that, it hosted the occasional gathering until its last event — a wedding of one of the founders’ descendants — in 1988.
Kim Lowry, the treasurer of the Halltown Chapel Memorial Association, cataloged the many repairs needed via email. “Water damage from a hole in the roof and from water seeping in under the foundation was the culprit. And without regular events or services, the chapel suffered from neglect. The plaster walls needed to be rehabilitated, the flooring had rotted and deteriorated and required replacement, and exterior work was required on the wood window sills and frames and the Chapel entrance area.”
Powderpost beetles had chomped on the pews, spreading ruin with every bite. One of the church’s three stained-glass windows was missing altogether, and the others needed restoration. One is a poignant tribute to Edna, a church member’s child who had died in infancy. Such design features — with references to congregation members who fundraised for such elements — are tangible history, traces of people long gone and their efforts to build beloved community.
“It’s impossible to talk about American craftsmanship without talking about the Black and Indigenous hands that constructed it even before 1776,” said Brandon Bibby, a senior preservation architect with the Action Fund. “It’s important to preserve that aspect so that we as a society don’t forget. By preserving, we are saying, ‘This place matters in the whole context of the American landscape.’”
“What I want most is that through this project, Black congregations and communities will see the value and beauty in their places and see they are worthy of preservation,” he said.
Does your church have a historic role in your community? How has its role changed over the years?
Recognizable elements of church design can be particularly vulnerable to deterioration. Steeples are both symbolic and pragmatic communicators; their towering presence in a landscape announces where people can worship or seek shelter. Yet sitting aloft, largely inaccessible, placing strain on dramatic, heaven-pointed roofs and often channeling rainwater to places it shouldn’t go, steeples can be a source of problems that go unnoticed until a leak sprouts or cracks appear.
Many of the Preserving Black Churches grant recipients need steeple repair. When congregations are forced to choose among costly repairs, a steeple can sometimes take a back seat to high-traffic areas with more visible problems, such as the sanctuary itself.
Funding a range of needs
What traditional elements of your church are difficult to maintain? Would your congregation be OK without them?
Declining church attendance has meant less coin in the collection plate and, in turn, fewer resources for maintenance and repairs. Black American church membership has dropped in recent years, from 78% in 1998-2000 to 59% in 2018-2020, though Black Americans remain one of the top populations most likely to be church members (along with conservatives and Republicans), according to a multiyear Gallup poll released in 2021.
A 2012 Kellogg Foundation report also found that Black people give more of their income to community-based causes than whites, in part because of a culture of mutual aid, lack of access to white-dominated institutional funding and traditions such as tithing. Even so, when an evangelical research firm surveyed church financial well-being, more Black pastors said their congregations had less than seven weeks of cash reserves — perhaps because they are dependent on a community with lower wealth in the first place. Getting money to repair churches can be particularly difficult.
Following the first grants that went to 35 churches across the country, recipients of another $4 million will be announced in January, Tolbert said, as part of a plan to distribute between $8 and $10 million, with support from Lilly Endowment Inc. In total, $20 million will be invested through Preserving Black Churches across all of its program goals.
If you were asked what in your church is worth preserving, what would you say? What would your congregation say?
That funding will go not only toward capital needs, Tolbert said, but also toward planning, to help churches understand how to undertake preservation. Matching grants will help churches create new preservation endowments so that invested income can be used to support maintenance and preservation of existing buildings. Emergency grants are also available to address immediate issues such as damage caused by floods, fires and even acts of vandalism.
And the Action Fund is working with six churches — four in Alabama and one each in California and Chicago — to help develop comprehensive stewardship plans that will address restoration and rehabilitation of the buildings along with programming and interpretation, activating space for community, and bringing in arts and social justice programs. They will benefit from a consulting team of architects, engineers, business planners and capital campaign fundraisers.
“It is essential that these places are activated,” Tolbert said. “They are centers of worship, but also, they continue to serve the community.”
Action Fund executive director Brent Leggs told The Washington Post in an interview that Black churches are exceptional lenses through which to view Black and American history. “It’s amazing to see centuries of Black history told at historic Black churches. Some of the stories include formerly enslaved Africans moving through emancipation, beginning to form communities, … and some of the earliest buildings founded by African Americans in the United States [include] a Black church. These places are of exceptional significance. Their stories matter, and they are worthy of being preserved.”
Would members of your community benefit from learning more about your congregation’s past and its role in local history?
Questions to consider
- It’s commonly said that the church is “more than the building,” yet buildings are material remnants of history and culture. What kinds of meaning do church buildings have for you?
- Does your church have a historic role in your community? How has its role changed over the years?
- Steeples are a traditional element of many churches, yet they can be difficult to maintain. What traditional elements of your church are difficult to maintain? Would your congregation be OK without them?
- If you were asked what in your church is worth preserving, what would you say? What would your congregation say?
- How is your space “activated” for your community? Would members of your community benefit from learning more about your congregation’s past and its role in local history?
When the Rev. Angela M. Redman left her 20-year legal career to serve as executive director of the United Methodist City Society, she did not expect so much of her time to be focused on real estate management and development. But she spends a good part of each day doing just that.
Located in upper Manhattan, the United Methodist City Society is a 185-year-old agency that provides support to United Methodist churches in the greater New York City area. A group of Methodist women started the organization to provide meals, education and shelter to children in economically impoverished neighborhoods. The society went on to build churches and spread the faith. Today, it still holds titles to churches throughout the area.
One of them was the Trinity-Morrisania United Methodist Church in the Bronx. But where that church once stood is now the Trinity-Rev. William M. James Senior Apartments, with 153 affordable housing units for low-income seniors. James had led a revitalization of the church as pastor there in the 1940s and ’50s.
A joint venture between the United Methodist City Society and the Bronx Pro Group — a real estate development and management company focused on affordable housing — the Trinity Apartments began accepting tenants in late 2021. But the project’s origin story goes back more than a decade, when the City Society’s then executive director, the Rev. Dr. William Shillady, first visited the church in 2008.
“When I first got to City Society, I visited all the churches we held title to,” Shillady said. A new apartment building had gone up across the street from Trinity-Morrisania, and the words emblazoned across the front door lintel caught his eye: “With God’s Love All Things Are Possible.”
That was Shillady’s introduction to the Bronx Pro Group. He contacted the developer and got a tour of the property.
In 2016, when the 12 remaining congregants of Trinity-Morrisania decided it was time to close the church, Shillady contacted the developer, beginning the transformation from a 150-year-old church in ill repair to a modern 12-story apartment building for low-income seniors. To be eligible, tenants must meet an age requirement and earn no more than 60% of the area’s median income.
The process was complicated, with intense negotiations between lawyers, Shillady recalled. Out of the eventual deal, City Society maintained a 25% share in the $88 million dollar development project, putting no money down, aside from the negotiating costs. Funded with tax-exempt bond financing, low-income housing tax credits and government subsidies, the project allows City Society to earn income — an estimated $50,000 to $75,000 annually — to fund additional mission work.
A developer with a mission
Since shifting its focus to affordable housing in 1998, the Bronx Pro Group has built more than 2,900 affordable units. Developing quality housing for low-income New Yorkers is integral to the mission of the firm, which was started by Peter Magistro, then a real estate developer and property manager, now retired. Aligning with his passion to cook for and feed the unhoused, according to his daughter, Samantha, he discovered he had a knack for affordable housing. After he completed his first such project in 2000, the company’s aspirational nod to Matthew 19:26 — “With God’s Love All Things Are Possible” — went over the door. It continues to grace many of the buildings that Bronx Pro develops and manages.
Samantha Magistro, now the company’s CEO, said this kind of work takes effort and faith. The project with City Society was no exception.
Although Bronx Pro had repurposed a vacant church before, this was the first time they were taking down a building with architecturally historic significance, and working with a partner who wanted to collaborate every step of the way.
“All things being equal, from a business perspective, it’s better to have fewer hurdles,” Samantha Magistro said. “But business is not the only driving factor.”
For example, it was important to Shillady that the new building incorporate elements of the old church. Walking through the lobby and the public spaces, you can see reminders: in the wooden arches built into a ground floor common room, in the restored stained-glass windows above the mailboxes and the restored pews, where residents can relax on their way in or out of the building.
How can your mission create community that sustains your organization’s purpose?
“Bill [Shillady] wanted to keep the mission alive, and it gave a richness to the experience of developing this project,” Samantha Magistro said. “This work is hard, so you have to be fulfilled from it.”
The church may be gone, but the mission work of the United Methodist City Society is very much present.
“Affordable housing is mission, by bringing the marginalized into beloved community,” Shillady said.
In the case of the Trinity Apartments, not only are they providing sustainable housing to low-income seniors, but the property also dedicates more than a third of the apartments to supported housing, reserved for formerly incarcerated seniors.
Since his release from prison in 2019, 70-year-old Ruhullah Hizbullah had been shuttled among various New York City homeless shelters. He was in a shelter in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx when his name was picked in a housing lottery.
“They told me to pack my bags,” Hizbullah said, holding his dog, Duke, in his cozy studio apartment. “I signed the papers and got the keys the same day. Now I feel free.”
How can your property be reimagined for mission-driven development?
The apartment was move-in ready: fully furnished, with linens and a kitchen stocked with pots and pans. Like the other tenants in the building, Hizbullah pays 30% of his monthly income in rent. State and city subsidies cover the remainder.
Another benefit for supported housing residents like Hizbullah are the wraparound services provided on-site by the Fortune Society, a New York-based nonprofit that has been helping people released from prison successfully reenter the community since 1967. Fortune Society rents office space in the building to support the organization’s broader mission in New York City. Among those working from the building are the case managers and staff who cater directly to the Trinity residents.
Providing a variety of services
“Each tenant has a case manager to talk with them individually to see what they want to work on,” said Carolyn Slade, who directs the senior housing program at the Trinity Apartments. Many of the resident have a history of homelessness and involvement in the criminal justice system.
“We try to help them integrate into the community,” she said.
That could mean addressing mental health issues and substance use. Ongoing services include training in budget management so that residents know how to be financially responsible. And an important part of Fortune Society’s support is making sure residents are accessing the benefits to which they are entitled.
“We want to make sure they have the income and the means to take care of things, like rent,” Slade said. The aim is to prevent these residents from experiencing homelessness again.
Fortune has a nurse on-site to help manage mobility issues, high blood pressure, diabetes. A lack of access to primary care means many tenants have unaddressed health concerns.
Tenants receive support to connect with primary care physicians and assistance with transportation to their medical appointments. Fortune also works with an agency that helps tenants access home health care workers to assist with cleaning, food preparation or shopping if they need it.
But among the most important services Fortune Society provides — not just for the formerly incarcerated but for all the residents — is building a sense of community.
That took time, said senior case manager Stalin Hunt, a Fortune Society employee for 20 years.
“When we first opened the building, the affordable housing tenants said, ‘I don’t want people like that here,’” Hunt said, referring to the other tenants’ concerns about the apartments reserved for the formerly incarcerated. “They were worried they would not feel safe or that their belongings would get stolen.”
But nothing like that happened, and the tensions began to subside.
The Fortune Society fosters community through events — such as a Valentine’s Day party and other holiday celebrations.
“You can really see people coming together as a community,” Hunt said. “People look out for each other.”
Resident William Muhamad Green, 63, said he also had spent a lot of time moving between the city’s homeless shelters after he was released from being incarcerated. He eventually became one of Trinity’s first residents and now experiences the type of community that builds friendships, like his with Hizbullah. He even takes turns caring for Duke.
When people challenge a concept or plan, how do you listen and form a response?
Fortune offers health, sports and cooking classes, as well as support groups. At a recent monthly tenants meeting, Fortune introduced a new member of the team, who would be coordinating other recreational activities, such as chess tournaments, bingo, nature walks and a talent show.
And there are plenty of spaces throughout the building where people can meet — like the sixth-floor terrace that offers a view of the Bronx skyline. On an unusually warm day in February, Hizbullah sat outside as the pigeons circled the coop on the neighboring rooftop.
“I like a place where I can meditate and read,” he said. “To free my mind.”
It may not look like a sanctuary, but the atmosphere is peaceful. A contemplative spot to call home.
Beyond serving congregations
“As church congregations are shrinking — and in some situations severely — the upkeep of the buildings is becoming too expensive for the congregations to manage,” said Redman, the City Society executive director. It’s important to explore how properties can be used differently to further ministry and generate income streams, she said.
This is not the first time City Society has been involved in affordable housing. Even in the early 20th century, the organization owned a number of buildings that offered housing to immigrants arriving in New York.
A later example is Grace United Methodist Church in Manhattan, which suffered a catastrophic fire in 1983. When City Society made plans to rebuild the church, the development project also included a 10-story building for low-income housing.
City Society owns that building outright. And while they hire a company for day-to-day management, maintaining the property is not for the faint of heart. Redman recently rattled off some of the reasons she spends so much time dealing with the property.
“We have five vacant apartments. That lowers the income stream. We have seven or eight tenants behind in rent. That lowers the income stream,” Redman said. “We meet with a management team and have a real estate committee. This is a significant part of what I do as executive director.”
There are definite advantages, she pointed out, to the partnership model that City Society has with the Bronx Pro Group. They maintain partial ownership in the property but don’t have to deal with all of those daily concerns.
But full ownership or a joint venture like the Trinity Apartments are just two possible models for churches. Since retiring in July 2022, after the official ribbon cutting at the Trinity Apartments, Shillady has invested his time in helping cash-strapped faith communities explore various ways to generate income.
“I’m really passionate about affordable housing and using church property for mission-driven development,” said Shillady, who now consults with congregations about how they can repurpose their properties. He also serves on the board of a New York City-based nonprofit called Bricks and Mortals, which helps faith-based communities utilize their properties in creative, sustainable ways.
One of the purposes of this member-based organization in bringing together religious leaders, lawyers, developers and brokers is to document the strategies religious institutions may use to sustain themselves and continue to provide essential services to New York City and surrounding areas.
There are a number of ways the thousands of religious properties in New York City can use their space to maximize mission. Among them are selling air rights to a developer or renting community space for theater or dance classes or educational groups, Shillady said.
“A church can sell its property and make a lot of money and walk away, whereas a church can negotiate a development where they could have new space in a mixed-used building to do missional work,” he said. “That congregation gets a new facility, partial ownership, income stream and usually some funds up front. It is not walking away but finding a way to be missional.”
Who are the community partners who should be at the table in developing strategies for sustainability?
Questions to consider
- How can your mission create community that sustains your organization’s purpose?
- How can your property be reimagined for mission-driven development?
- When people challenge a concept or plan, how do you listen and form a response?
- Who are the community partners who should be at the table in developing strategies for sustainability?