New York Church Sells Air Rights for $23.9 Million to Build Fifth Avenue Tower

A landmarked Manhattan church is selling the empty sky above its roof for $23.9 million. The building itself is going nowhere, and what is changing hands is the last slice of air the church owns, the unused right to build upward that it will never use itself.

The historic Society of the Free Church of St. Mary the Virgin in Midtown Manhattan has agreed to sell 87,000 square feet of its unused development rights, known as air rights, to Extell Development for $23.9 million, according to court documents. Commercial Observer puts the total at $23.93 million under a December 2025 purchase and sale agreement.

The church is a landmarked Episcopal church at 145 West 46th Street, on property spanning 133 to 145 West 46th Street, in the Times Square neighbourhood of Midtown. Its unused rights are worth real money precisely because the air above it sits in the middle of Manhattan.

Church of St. Mary the Virgin Air Rights Sale: $23.9 Million Deal

Gary Barnett, the founder and chairman of Extell, executed the purchase and sale agreement with the church in December 2025. The rector, Sammy Wood, represented the church in the deal. No brokers were connected to the sale agreement, according to the filing.

The sale recieved approval from the board of trustees of the church, as well as from the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York and from the bishop of the diocese, Matthew Foster Heyd, according to the filing. That chain of approvals matters, because a parish church does not sell its rights on its own say-so, and each approval was needed before the deal could go to court. The approvals show the deal had been worked through inside the church before it ever reached a judge.

The sale still needs approval from the New York Supreme Court, and it is not yet a completed transaction. The December 2025 agreement was filed with the court for approval, and until a judge approves it, the $23.9 million is agreed but not yet final. Readers should hold that distinction in mind, because headlines about a sale can sound finished when the legal step that finishes it is still ahead.

The sale marks the final portion of the church's air rights.

That description comes from the reporting of the filing, and the history behind it is that the church previously transferred another 131,000 square feet to the Durst Organization for its office tower at 114 West 47th Street. Once this deal closes, there will be no more air left to sell, which is why the church is treating the proceeds as a one-off resource rather than a repeating income.

The church is expected to use the funds for general maintenance of its property and for several community initiatives focused on helping the needy in the city. Ten percent will go to the Episcopal Diocese of New York.

570 Fifth Avenue Tower: What Extell Will Build With the Air Rights

The unused development rights will go toward the tower Extell is building at 570 Fifth Avenue, between West 46th and West 47th streets, one block east of the church. The site is close enough that the air rights can be transferred to it, and the tower is the reason the church's unused rights have a buyer at all. Without a neighbouring development that can use them, air rights are only a line in a filing, and here they have a building waiting for them.

Extell's plan for the site has changed shape, evolving from a proposed 78-story supertall into a 29-story office and retail tower. The smaller tower is still a major Midtown building, and it will rise on rights gathered from nearby properties, including this church.

Law firm Simpson Thacher and Bartlett will anchor the office portion with a 916,000-square-foot lease signed in May, and Ingka Investments will open an 80,000-square-foot Ikea store at the base, with delivery expected by the end of 2028. The pattern of a New York church selling property to fund its mission is not new, as the Episcopal Church sale of its $52 million Manhattan headquarters to plant churches showed earlier in October.

Historic Manhattan Church Keeps Its Building and Worship

What is being sold is unused development rights above the church, not the church building itself, and the deal leaves the parish where it has always been. The agreement occured in December 2025, and the filing set out the approvals, the parties and the price in the open.

Churches across the country are weighing buildings, budgets and mission at the same time, as the report of United Methodist Church membership falling by 174,000 in 2025 makes clear. The Manhattan deal keeps the building and sells only the air, but it comes from the same pressure to make a historic property pay for present ministry.

Other congregations are also making large property decisions in public this month, including the Texas megachurch that voted to leave the United Methodist Church, where property was part of the dispute. The Manhattan church stayed inside its diocese and shared the proceeds with it, and that contrast is worth noting.

The next step is the court, and the next question is whether the New York Supreme Court approves a deal that everyone else in the chain has already approved. If it does, the church will have turned its last unused air into maintenance and community work, and a new tower will rise one block east.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.