BY SCOTT STIFFLER | Saints be praised! After a long—and of late, contentious—search for a lessee who’d bring balance to the financially faltering General Theological Seminary (GTS), this week’s announcements from the landlord as well as their intended tenant garnered high praise from a chorus of community stakeholders who viewed the prospect of GTS’ previous frontrunner as tantamount to an unholy alliance.

In a textbook example of not burying the lede, the headline of September 26’s GTS press release declared, “The General Theological Seminary signs agreement to lease the Close to Vanderbilt University.” (the “Close” refers to the 206-year-old Seminary grounds, W. 20th to 21st Sts., 9th to 10th Aves.)

The arrangement allows the 1817-founded Episcopal seminary to “maintain a year-round presence at its home in Chelsea” for “decades to come,” assured the press release, further stating, “The lease arrangement is not a merger, and GTS will continue to operate as a separate entity with its own distinct identity and programming.”

For its part, noted a September 26 press release from TN-based Vanderbilt University, “The Chelsea location will create not only opportunities for students in Nashville, but for expanding research partnerships, increasing engagement with businesses and organizations around the world, and supporting the more than 7,800 alumni and 740 current students who call the New York area home.” Its presence on the Close is also expected to be the “new home base” of a regional administrative hub established in the city in 2023—all in the service, the press release noted, of “best leveraging the space to expand opportunities for Vanderbilt students, faculty, alumni and supporters while providing benefits for the neighborhood and the city.”

In a September 26 email to Chelsea Community News (CCNews), GTS President, The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, stated, “GTS will continue to have offices and apartments on the Close. The offices will be clustered around the Chapel. We will continue to host our intensives for students on the Close for six weeks each year. During this time, we will have accommodation for 45 students, as well as the use of classrooms, the library, Hoffman Hall, and of course the Chapel. The Close very much remains GTS’ home.” President Markham further assured the arrangement allows “for infrastructure upgrades and facility improvements.”

It’s the considerable cost of present upgrades and future upkeep that led to leasing of GTS land. In fiscal year 2023, read GTS’ November 9, 2023 press release, “operating expenses were $7.8 million, against an annual income of $4.3 million.” As noted in our previous reporting, despite having sold several buildings to the Brodsky Organization in 2012 for a reported 18.5 Million, the Seminary found itself with “no funding source for any emergency capital expenditure, or deferred maintenance, which is estimated to be in excess of $32 million.”

That led GTS to, their November 2023 press release noted, enter into negotiations to “lease the Close to a [Christian] nonprofit partner to support its education mission.” When said partner was later identified as the School of Sacred Music (SSM)—largely funded by a person hostile to LGBTQIA+ and reproductive rights—community dissatisfaction coalesced at an April 14, 2024 GTS-sponsored presentation during which President Markham was taken to task for the tone-deaf devil’s bargain.

In a September 26 email statement to CCNews, Sally Greenspan—speaking in her capacity as President of the Council of Chelsea Block Associations (CCBA) recalled, “When word got out early last spring that The Seminary, an iconic landmark jewel in the center of our community, could potentially enter into a long-term lease with the School of Sacred Music, our local elected officials, led by NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher, along with community leaders led by Emily Tobin and also including the Council of Chelsea Block Associations, jumped into action to hopefully find a more compatible and responsible neighbor for Chelsea.”

With the prospect that a private research university will be coming to the Close, Greenspan said the CCBA “is thrilled that our new neighbor will be Vanderbilt University” and noted, “It is our understanding that GTS will also benefit because the lease arrangement will permit them to continue to utilize the Close for some of their important traditional programing, with facilities that are greatly improved. Everyone wins here.”

Regarding the School of Sacred Music, President Markham told CCNews, “Weekly Vespers services were run by the School of Sacred Music which rented the Chapel for the services. The SSM discontinued these services earlier this year. We wish the School of Sacred Music the very best with its future endeavors.”

The GTS Board voted unanimously to accept the offer from Vanderbilt, which will arrive in Chelsea with none of the problematic baggage documented in our April 18, 2024 account of the GTS presentation. President Markham, the report noted, called LGBTQIA+ inclusion “a priority and a fundamental part of my identity,” while calling Thomas Wilson, Founding President and Master of Chapel Music for SSM, “an affirming guy” who conducts himself and his programming with none of the negativity often ascribed to Colin Moran. [A March 22, 2024, New York Daily News article identified Moran as chairman of the board of directors of First Things, a conservative journal whose contributors have written pieces critical of gay marriage, trans people and abortion.”)

By contrast, Vanderbilt is home to the K.C. Potter Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Life (LGBTQI Life), described here as “a cultural center, a place of affirmation for individuals of all identities, and a resource for information and support about gender and sexuality.” Furthermore, their LGBTQ+ Policy Lab “connects researchers, students, and community members who are interested in the causes and consequences of LGBTQ+ policies,” while the Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Program for LGBTQ Health provides “excellent patient care, education, research, and advocacy for the LGBTQ community.”

As for the type of neighbor the Chelsea community can expect of University, a September 26 email sent to CCNews by Vanderbilt’s Communications and Marketing Office and attributable to University noted, “We’re eager to work with stakeholders across the city and state, and with businesses and community organizations…We will be providing full briefings to the community board and block associations over the next month.” Assurances were also given that Vanderbilt will “share updates on our progress on an ongoing basis and pursue opportunities for collaboration with local residents, businesses and community organizations.”

Pamela Wolff, president of Save Chelsea, said the preservationist organization is “delighted that Vanderbilt University has entered into a lease of the General Theological Seminary campus—the heart of the Chelsea Historic District.” Vanderbilt’s mission, declared Wolff, “could not be more appropriate to this aspirational, contemplative place, its scholastic foundation, and its exquisite Collegiate Gothic design. Save Chelsea welcomes Vanderbilt with open arms.”

Said NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher, whose District 3 coverage area includes the Close, “The collaboration between General Theological Seminary and Vanderbilt University stands as a testament to what we can achieve when we unite for a common purpose. This is a significant step forward, and it reaffirms our commitment to creating opportunities for growth, learning, and engagement in our neighborhood.”

Although all signs point toward a harmonious scenario that sees the Seminary remain on site while welcoming a well-regarded new presence on the Close, GTS’ optimistic announcement also acknowledged the deal is, well, not yet a done deal.

“The agreement requires approval from the New York State Attorney General. This process is expected to take three to six months, with the lease likely to begin in early 2025,” GTS noted, adding, “It is also contingent upon Vanderbilt receiving approval from New York State’s regulatory bodies.”

CCNews will continue to follow this story as it develops.

SAVE CHELSEA NOTES: “Vanderbilt’s presence will honor the vision of Chelsea’s founder, Clement Clarke Moore. He planned the Seminary block as an academic center with open grounds that would double as a village green for the genteel community he hoped to establish. The block’s educational conception is inextricable with Moore’s passion for scholarship, which found an outlet in his role as a professor of Greek and Hebrew at the Seminary. The campus of his day had two main buildings, only one of which still stands, but the block’s architectural excellence rests on the planning of architect Charles Coolidge Haight’s late-nineteenth-century Collegiate Gothic buildings. Haight also used this picturesque style for Yale University buildings, appropriately including Vanderbilt Hall. The Seminary’s visionary Dean, E.A. Hoffman, charged Haight with a comprehensive “grand design” of a greatly enlarged seminary. In keeping most construction along three sides of the block, Haight consolidated, defined and sheltered outdoor space. By this strategy, Hoffman observed, “the function of the grounds as a private park is interfered with as little as possible,” maintaining Moore’s initial objective. Haight’s focal chapel projects onto the center of the grounds, taking up the traditional north position of a cloister church and forming east and west quads. The south side of the block is left open, admitting sunlight to the leafy campus grounds and complementing the front gardens of the rowhouses across 20th Street, which were prescribed by Clement Clarke Moore’s planning guidelines. The result is one of New York’s very best blocks.”

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