New York Times Real Estate Feature Article: "For Houses of Worship, A Devilish Market"

The Mormon Church, whose policy it is to build communities of adherents first and then to take meeting houses to them, spent 15 months looking for a site in Harlem. . . .

While some congregations seeking more or better space are forced to be patient, others face a greater urgency. Thanks to its steady growth, the elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have repeatedly faced the challenge of finding space. In 1990, there were 1,700 Mormons in Manhattan; this year, there are 3,400.

"It is especially difficult in Manhattan," said Richard Hedberg, the church's real estate representative for the Northeast and parts of Canada. "Land is so expensive, and everything has something on it. Typically, you have to buy something, tear it down and build it back up."

That is the plan for one of the church's recent acquisitions, a single-story brick building at 56-58 West 129th Street it bought last year for $300,000 from the Central Harlem Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, which itself has moved on to 310 West 129th Street and rebuilt an existing Jehovah's Witnesses Kingdom Hall, doubling its size.

Before acquiring the Jehovah's Witnesses' building, the Mormons had been conducting services at Sylvia's, the renowned soul-food restaurant (Sylvia Woods's son, Dan [Van], is a church member).

"We have a large number of members who live in the area, and we believe in taking the building to the members," said Brent Belnap, a vice president and senior counsel at Citibank who is the president of the Mormon church's Manhattan stake, a geographical area analogous to a diocese. "It is a less than desirable building now," he said, "but we are planning to build a temporary meeting house for four congregations on that site and on a vacant lot next door that we bought that together are 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep."

That plan, he explained, will be augmented by the addition of more space he hopes the church will acquire, either adjoining the existing lots or nearby. "We have youth programs we feel will bless the lives of the people of Harlem in a major way," he said, "from scouting to basketball, along with programs to strengthen the family and assist people in employment."

In March, the Mormons also opened a church on what had been vacant land at 1815 Riverside Drive in the Inwood section of northern Manhattan, a two-story, red-brick building with a chapel, 21 classrooms and a gymnasium that doubles as a cultural center. Two separate congregations or wards, as they are known in the church, meet there, one English-speaking, the other Spanish-speaking.

In addition, the church is renting space in Chinatown, and plans are being considered to build a chapel downtown. "We have also been actively searching for space for five years on the Upper East Side," Mr. Belnap said.

He has sensed a shift in attitudes about real estate costs from Mormon headquarters in Salt Lake City.

"It used to be that they were concerned about price,'' he said. ''Now they know if we want members on the Upper East Side, we must pay Manhattan prices -- and that would be multimillions of dollars."