A church in the heart of the city, with a heart for the city

Episcopal Church to market its NYC headquarters building for possible sale, redevelopment

June 17, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church, after decades of discussions about the prudence of owning and maintaining a building in New York City as its headquarters, will test the market for a possible redevelopment, sale or both, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced on June 17. The Episcopal Church Center in Midtown Manhattan, commonly referred to as “815” because of its street address, 815 Second Ave., rises 12 stories high and contains 146,000 square feet of space, but in recent years, much of the churchwide staff has worked remotely in locations across the United States and Europe. Less than half the building is now occupied by church operations or affiliated organizations. After consulting this week with Executive Council — the church governing body is meeting June 15-17 in the Diocese of Puerto Rico —church officials are hiring New York-based Denham Wolf Real Estate Services to market the 63-year-old building for a possible sale. “We’ve done a detailed analysis about the best use of the building, with consultants and architects,” Chief Financial Officer Chris Lacovara said in a church news release. “We occupy a fraction of the Church Center space now, and the conclusion is that we don’t need to own and occupy a building in midtown Manhattan.” The news release describes the building as The Episcopal Church’s “most valuable non-endowment asset,” and it has long been a focus of speculation as church leaders considered whether to relocate the denominational headquarters. The news release notes those discussions date back at least as far as 1970, and in 2012, bishops and deputies at General Convention voted in favor of pursuing a new headquarters. The 2012 resolution says simply: “It is the will of this Convention to move the Church Center headquarters away from the Church Center building at 815 2nd Avenue, New York City.” The Rev. William Coyne, a deputy from the Diocese of South Carolina at that convention, was part of the team that drafted and proposed the resolution. He told Episcopal News Service recently that he still thinks relocation is the right course. “The size of our church and the structure of how we do things now, I don’t think we need a headquarters in Manhattan,” Coyne said. The geographic center of the church also has shifted over the years, with larger numbers of Episcopalians in the southeastern United States, he said. That might justify establishing a new headquarters in a more central American city. Despite the 2012 resolution, planning for such a relocation never got off the ground. Now, 14 years later, the church is considering a range of options, possibly including “a long-term ground lease with a group that would redevelop the building, potentially as affordable housing,” according to the news release. “Dioceses and congregations throughout The Episcopal Church are looking at real estate as a missional asset, and we need to think about the Church Center in the same way,” Lacovara said. “We’re hoping that the decision to market the building, and the process we went through leading up to it, will encourage others to think carefully about how best to steward underutilized buildings and land.” Any final decision on the building is still likely months away, Rowe said. If the building is leased or sold to a developer, the church would move its existing New York-based offices to another temporary Manhattan location and initiate a churchwide discussion on a future location for the Church Center. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.