The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has expressed conditional support for converting Fort Greene’s Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church into the base of a 27-story residential tower, with most commissioners backing the overall concept while calling for revisions to better preserve the church’s historic identity, according to Brownstoner.
The development team said the church, at 144 St. Felix St., is in poor condition and that restoring it without a significant expansion would not be financially feasible, according to the website.
They said stabilization and restoration alone would cost tens of millions of dollars while yielding relatively few residential units if confined to the existing structure.
The proposal includes restoring the St. Felix Street and Hanson Place facades, repairing masonry and ornamentation, preserving religious iconography, upgrading windows and adding new retail and community space. The stepped-back tower would include 240 apartments, including 50 to 60 permanently affordable units, according to Brownstoner.
The development team said a study of reusing the church within its existing footprint would result in approximately 32 residential units, about 14% of what is proposed, making the project inefficient and financially unviable.
Most commissioners supported the general scale and massing of the tower, with some describing the design as bold yet sensitive. However, several raised concerns that the proposal lacked a clear identity, appearing to draw simultaneously from the church and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower rather than prioritizing the historic church and district. Commissioners also said too few original elements, including stained-glass windows and historic doors, were being preserved in place.
Some suggested pulling back portions of the northern bay and potentially reducing the height so the tower does not rise above the shoulder of the adjacent bank building. Others warned that the proposed materials risked blurring the distinction between old and new, making the addition appear as though it had always existed, Brownstoner reported.
One commissioner took a more critical stance, questioning whether a tower was appropriate at all for St. Felix Street, which he described as a lower-scale block. He argued the proposal overwhelmed the church, effectively reducing it to a pedestal, and said the need for such a dramatic increase in height had not been adequately demonstrated from a landmarks perspective.
Despite those objections, acting LPC chair Angie Masters said the commission was largely supportive of both the project and adaptive reuse of churches more broadly, while emphasizing that revisions were needed to better preserve the church’s historic character. She added that the developers could revisit the height of the tower in response to commissioners’ concerns, Brownstoner reported.
The project will return to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for a vote once revisions are submitted.
