[sparkling]

Bible Society Sells New York City Building for $300 Million



KEIKO MORRIS
Feb. 1, 2015

The American Bible Society has sold its New York City headquarters building near Columbus Circle to AvalonBay Communities Inc. for $300 million, a price that will pay for the nonprofit organization’s move to Philadelphia and allow it to reinvest in its services.

The 199-year-old society has been at 1865 Broadway for almost 50 years.

The winning offer from real-estate investment trust AvalonBay was one of about 25 domestic and international bids for the building, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc., which advised the American Bible Society on the sale and its relocation.

“It’s one of those sites that just don’t come along very often,” said Martin Piazzola, AvalonBay senior vice president of development for New York City.

AvalonBay’s plans are still being shaped, but the company intends to raze the existing building and construct a high-end residential development with retail space at its base, Mr. Piazzola said.

The building could measure more than 300,000 square feet, including about 55,000 to 60,000 square feet of retail, he said.

Located a block from Central Park, the American Bible Society building sits in an area of exclusive, ultraluxury high-rises, a far cry from the neighborhood the nonprofit found when it moved there from Park Avenue in the mid-1960s.

The property drew interest from about 150 investors, said Helen Hwang, executive vice president for the New York capital markets group at Cushman.

“For a site of this size and scale and in this location, typically developers have to assemble it,” Ms. Hwang said. “It’s very rare for a development site of this quality to come to market as one piece.”

Over the last decade, many new hires with the Bible society opted to work in the organization’s Valley Forge, Pa., location because it was more affordable than New York, aid Roy Peterson, president and CEO of the nonprofit organization. Many of its New York staff live in New Jersey, he said.

“I wanted to bring the whole team together in one place in order to be really effective to deal with the changes in the digital world,” Mr. Peterson said. “Philadelphia presented a really dynamic city and [is] much more affordable than New York and a fairly easy relocation.”

The Bible society, which aims to broaden the Bible’s readership by translating it in different languages and making it digitally accessible, will keep a presence in Manhattan and is shopping for office space now

The society plans to lease its new headquarters in a Philadelphia neighborhood filled with historic attractions, which Mr. Peterson said was only fitting. “People come to New York for shopping, for Broadway,” he said. “They don’t come to New York to learn about our nation’s history or the Bible.”