A new developer is hoping the third time’s a charm at the site of a boarded-up church in Clinton Hill.
Michael Lévy’s fledgling firm Geneva Transatlantic Holdings and Andrew Bradfield’s Orange Management bought 257 Washington Avenue, formerly St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, out of bankruptcy for $9 million. They plan to convert it into either apartments or condos.
This will be the first project for Geneva Transatlantic, founded by Lévy after a decade of working for Simon Elias’s Gama Holdings. The conversion plans were first reported by Crain’s.
“I kind of fell in love with the building,” said Lévy. “When I found out it was for sale, I chased a deal and decided that I wanted to convert it into residential and I wanted to make something good out of it.”
They are not the first developers to attempt a residential conversion. The last owner, Serabjit Singh Malhotra, put the property into bankruptcy in May, five years after acquiring it for an ambitious conversion project.
Singh was the second developer to own the property and to attempt to convert it into housing in the 10 years since the church was shuttered.
He purchased it from Brookland Capital for $13.5 million in 2019, when Brookland was facing financial difficulties and unloading properties. The building is landmarked, adding to the challenge of such a conversion.
“It’s not straightforward at all,” Lévy said. “But what I intend to do is restore the rectory building and the church from the outside, I am going to hire a significant interior designer and I want the people in Clinton Hill to be happy with the result.”
Lévy said he has secured financing for the $40 million to $50 million project from a family office that he declined to name.
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