- The First Reformed Dutch Church of Jamaica, in Queens, New York, is part of a 258-unit project
- The church signed a ground lease valued at $8.8 million in 2019
- The building will include a 400-seat sanctuary and a pastor’s apartment
- Social service provider Breaking Ground will also have space
In Jamaica, Queens, a church is trading space on its land for a new home inside a large apartment building. The Real Deal reported in August 2025 that Haussmann Development plans a 258-apartment project called The Tabernacle at 159-31 90th Avenue, on a 24,000-square-foot parcel.
The site involves the First Reformed Dutch Church of Jamaica. A ground lease between developer KD Sagamore and the church, agreed in 2019, was valued at $8.8 million. The filed plans show a 14-storey building, though it has been marketed as 11 storeys.
The church keeps a substantial presence. The plans include a sanctuary seating 400 people, about 14,000 square feet of worship space in total, administrative offices, an apartment for the pastor and church meeting rooms in the cellar. “The development will also build additional space for social service provider Breaking Ground,” according to the report.
The arrangement is a ground lease rather than a sale, meaning the church keeps its land while a developer builds and runs the apartments, and the congregation gets new facilities in the building.
Jamaica, Queens, is home to a large Caribbean community. A ground lease like this one, which keeps the land in church hands and builds worship space into a new development, is a model Jamaican churches both in New York and at home can study. It shows how a congregation can gain new facilities without giving up its land.
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