Rendering Credit: Level One Holdings / Issac & Stern Architects
After half a century of service, the building housing Harlem’s Second Canaan Baptist Church has been swiftly dismantled to make room for a 27-unit condo development with church spaces below. The new condo building has fully risen and workers recently removed some of the construction scaffolds, revealing an uneventful facade of tepid-toned brick, large windows, and an undercooked cornice line.
10 Lenox as of late December 2018
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(CityRealty)
Prior to the development, the Goldberg and Jacobs Lenox Theatre building had anchored the corner site at 10 Lenox Avenue since the turn of the century and the church moved to the building in 1956 after a decade-long search and a steadily growing membership
As DNAinfo (RIP) reported in October 2017, Harlem has been losing its churches at breakneck speed, citing that nearly two dozen churches have either closed or been sold to developers in the last decade alone. Reasons for the sell-off are a combination of factors that include “dwindling memberships, high maintenance costs and the lure of millions of dollars from developers ready to buy in Harlem,” says DNA. Nearby at 145 Central Park North, the New York United Sabbath Day Adventist Church was sold to a developer who is now building a 13-floor, 36-unit condo overlooking Central Park.
Demolished building housing Second Canaan Baptist Church; R: Previous rendering of incoming condo-church project
The Goldberg and Jacobs Lenox Theatre in 1941 via Harlem Bespoke
Second Canaan Baptist Church’s prime location made it an ideal candidate for redevelopment. It is a block north of Central Park and is across from the 2 and 3 express trains at the 110th Street station. In 2016, the congregation teamed up with Brooklyn-based developer Level One Holdings to redevelop the property into an eight-story condo with 11,000 square feet on the first two levels reserved for the church. Issac & Stern were enlisted as the architects and renderings show a tame design with a rusticated stone base and tan buffed brick above. The new sanctuary will open onto Lenox Avenue (Malcolm X Boulevard) while the residential entrance will be tucked along less-trafficked West 111th Street.
Sales have yet to officially launch on the building's 29 apartments and an offering plan submitted to the Attorney General's Office has yet to be approved. Construction permits show there will be no more than six apartments per floor and the two units on the uppermost floor will have terraces and tree-top views of Central Park. Listed amenities include a roof deck, a third-floor lounge and bike storage.
(Level One Holdings)
10 Lenox Avenue is directly across from 111 Central Park North, whose penthouse apartment previously set the record for priciest condominium ever sold in Harlem. That record was subsequently surpassed by three other new development condos along 110th Street. They are One Morningside Park, One Museum Mile, and now Circa Central Park whose crowning penthouse closed for $9.4 million. Our listings show there are 215 condos and co-ops for sale in Central and East Harlem. For condos, studios are priced at a median of $559,000 ($1,094 / ft²), one-bedrooms at $720,000 ($1,030 / ft²) and two-bedrooms at $991,500 ($1,063 / ft²).
With much of the exterior work done, we expect 10 Lexox to begin sales in the coming months and delivery sometime in 2019.
With much of the exterior work done, we expect 10 Lexox to begin sales in the coming months and delivery sometime in 2019.
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