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For the second time this summer, a historic church in the Harlem section of New York City is being sold for transition into new development.

According to a Bisnow report, the Archdiocese of New York is planning to sell The Church of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Kahen Development Group, a luxury residential developer, for $5 million. The archdiocese entered into the contract in late June and will require state permission to sell the property.

The 13,000-square-foot property on East 119th Street is within a residentially zoned area and could be converted into housing. Earlier this year, a potential sale to a developer linked to the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art was scrapped when the buyer determined that repairs on the property would cost roughly $44 million.

The church’s parish was established in 1884 to serve the neighborhood’s German and Irish communities. The stone Holy Rosary Church building was dedicated in February 1900. In 2015, the congregation at Holy Rosary was merged into the nearby Parish of St. Paul and the church ceased to operate; it was deconsecrated in 2017.

In recent years, Harlem has witnessed the sale of multiple churches, a reflection of the neighborhood’s demographic changes and increasing attractiveness to real estate developers. Earlier this month, Transfiguration Lutheran Church and two adjacent brownstones were announced to be under contract for $3.5 million to Brooklyn developer Jacob Leifer, who plans to turn the property into a mixed-use development.

Photo: Jim.henderson / Wikimedia Commons