SIMOLEONS
BREAKING: Trinity-Wall Street is loaded:
There has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.
Not just loaded. Loaded out the freaking wazoo.
Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.
Considering the scratch Trinity pulls down, feckless Trinity rector Jim Cooper could corner the feck market if he wanted to.
The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.
If only feckless Trinity rector Jim Cooper remembered that he’s supposed to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not Donald Trump.
It reported $158 million in real estate revenue for 2011, the majority of which went toward maintaining and supporting its real estate operations, the financial statement indicates. Of the $38 million left for the church’s operating budget, some $4 million was spent on communications, $3 million on philanthropic grant spending and $2.5 million on the church’s music program, church officials said.
Nearly $6 million went to maintain Trinity’s historic properties, including the main church building, which was built in 1846; St. Paul’s Chapel; and several cemeteries, where luminaries including Alexander Hamilton and Edward I. Koch are buried. The remainder went into the church’s equity investment portfolio.
Let me see if I have this straight. T-WS made $158 million dollars out of its real estate properties but could only manage $3 million dollars in philanthropic grants. Jim, Paul and Jan Crouch, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and Paula White think that’s messed up.
The vast majority of the parish’s property is in Hudson Square, a commercial neighborhood next to the Manhattan entrance to the Holland Tunnel. These days, the area’s hulking prewar industrial buildings, designed for use by printing companies, are increasingly occupied by creative and technology companies, with restaurants and galleries on the street level.
“The Trinity Church properties are now among the most valuable in all of New York City, because they are sitting on the edge of the hottest neighborhoods in the city — SoHo, TriBeCa and Greenwich Village,” said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University.
“Trinity has been either very wise or very prudent, but they have let the market mature around them, and now they are ready to take advantage of it.”
The church, which calls itself “one of the largest landowners in Manhattan,” has also been building an equity investment portfolio that was worth about $160 million in 2011. And the value of Trinity’s real estate holdings is expected to grow because rezoning of much of the church’s land will allow up to 3,200 new residential units, with the first large project planned for Duarte Square on Canal Street.
Remember all this the next time you read about the lavish lifestyle of some televangelist.
There has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.
Not just loaded. Loaded out the freaking wazoo.
Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.
Considering the scratch Trinity pulls down, feckless Trinity rector Jim Cooper could corner the feck market if he wanted to.
The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.
If only feckless Trinity rector Jim Cooper remembered that he’s supposed to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and not Donald Trump.
It reported $158 million in real estate revenue for 2011, the majority of which went toward maintaining and supporting its real estate operations, the financial statement indicates. Of the $38 million left for the church’s operating budget, some $4 million was spent on communications, $3 million on philanthropic grant spending and $2.5 million on the church’s music program, church officials said.
Nearly $6 million went to maintain Trinity’s historic properties, including the main church building, which was built in 1846; St. Paul’s Chapel; and several cemeteries, where luminaries including Alexander Hamilton and Edward I. Koch are buried. The remainder went into the church’s equity investment portfolio.
Let me see if I have this straight. T-WS made $158 million dollars out of its real estate properties but could only manage $3 million dollars in philanthropic grants. Jim, Paul and Jan Crouch, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and Paula White think that’s messed up.
The vast majority of the parish’s property is in Hudson Square, a commercial neighborhood next to the Manhattan entrance to the Holland Tunnel. These days, the area’s hulking prewar industrial buildings, designed for use by printing companies, are increasingly occupied by creative and technology companies, with restaurants and galleries on the street level.
“The Trinity Church properties are now among the most valuable in all of New York City, because they are sitting on the edge of the hottest neighborhoods in the city — SoHo, TriBeCa and Greenwich Village,” said Mitchell L. Moss, a professor of urban policy and planning at New York University.
“Trinity has been either very wise or very prudent, but they have let the market mature around them, and now they are ready to take advantage of it.”
The church, which calls itself “one of the largest landowners in Manhattan,” has also been building an equity investment portfolio that was worth about $160 million in 2011. And the value of Trinity’s real estate holdings is expected to grow because rezoning of much of the church’s land will allow up to 3,200 new residential units, with the first large project planned for Duarte Square on Canal Street.
Remember all this the next time you read about the lavish lifestyle of some televangelist.
No comments:
Post a Comment