From Convent to $6,500-a-Month Apartments: What Became of a Brooklyn Sisters’ Home

• Two former convent buildings on President Street, Brooklyn, were converted to apartments
• The Sisters of Saint Joseph had moved to their motherhouse in Brentwood, New York
• Greenbrook Partners bought the buildings for $8.4 million in 2021
• The $3 million conversion created 12 two- and three-bedroom units

When a religious order leaves its building, the property often ends up on the open market. Commercial Observer reported in June 2024 on how a pair of three-storey buildings at 784-786 President Street in Brooklyn, once a convent of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, became rental apartments.

The sisters had moved to their motherhouse in Brentwood, New York, and the buildings stood empty for some time. Greenbrook Partners, a Brooklyn multifamily investor, bought them in March 2021 for $8.4 million and spent $3 million converting them into 12 two- and three-bedroom apartments. According to StreetEasy, rents started at $6,500 a month when listed earlier in 2024.

Architect Aron Himmelfarb of Auver redesigned the dormitory-style layout into homes. “With a project like this, the floor plans are really the most important aspect,” he said. A sawtooth skylight from the top-floor chapel was kept and now lights a three-bedroom unit’s living room.

“The bones were great, and the location was unbelievable,” said Greenbrook managing principal Greg Fournier. His colleague Frederic LeCao added: “This is not unique to convents… It’s a way to think about adaptive reuse.”

This story is a contrast to church-led affordable housing: once sold, religious property usually goes to the highest bidder and becomes market housing. Jamaican churches and religious orders deciding whether to sell buildings they no longer need should weigh that outcome against leasing or partnering on homes for local people. For diaspora investors, converted church buildings can be good homes, but their history and community value deserve respect.

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