[NYguy]

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/201...039945/trinity-to-erect-apartment-towers

Trinity to erect apartment towers
The Episcopal church's lucrative property arm makes a big new bet on residential real estate





BY DANIEL GEIGER
NOVEMBER 3, 2014

For just over three centuries, Trinity Church has cautiously managed the 215 acres of downtown Manhattan it received from Britain's Queen Anne, turning it from productive farmland to industrial and office space.

In the next few weeks, the Episcopal church—whose property arm, Trinity Real Estate, oversees the 5.5 million square feet of office buildings it owns on the western fringe of SoHo in an area called Hudson Square—will try something new. It will venture into the high-stakes game of residential development.

.....Trinity's first step will come before the year-end, when it selects a partner to help rebuild its 25-story headquarters on Trinity Place. The building is across the street from Trinity's landmark church and linked to its famous cemetery—the final resting place of Alexander Hamilton, among others—via a pedestrian bridge. Work converting the office building to a sleek, 44-story Pelli Clarke Pelli-designed tower, topped by luxury residences, will begin next year.

Meanwhile, in January, Trinity will kick off the search for a partner to help build a 430-foot-tall, 300,000-square-foot residential building a mile north, on a plot framed by Sixth Avenue and Canal, Grand and Varick streets. The property will include a 444-seat public school at its base.

At least three more big residential towers, together totaling close to 1 million square feet, will follow in Hudson Square. Trinity laid the legal groundwork for their rise last year when the City Council approved a massive rezoning that will allow the church—Hudson Square's largest landlord, with more than a dozen office buildings—to build residences for the first time.

.....Mr. Pizer, 49, has an even-keeled demeanor that has made him a fitting chief of Trinity's real estate business. After the rezoning last year, several developers broke ground on residential projects. Mr. Pizer said Trinity would be cautious not to undertake too much at once.

"I'm a big believer that we should never bite off more than we can chew," he said.

[b][color=blue]Mr. Pizer noted the company would likely wait years before it undertakes 4 Hudson Square, a development site that encompasses the full block between Hudson and Varick streets from Spring to Vandam streets.
The location can accommodate about 1 million square feet of new development—likely two towers, one residential and the other office space.

"We'll wait for the next real estate cycle," Mr. Pizer said.