Discussions toward a better understanding of LDS doctrine, history, and culture. Discussion of Christianity, religion, and faith in general is welcome.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is negotiating to buy a London office building for a reported $129 million, according to Bloomberg.
Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that the church’s real estate company, Property Reserve Inc., is in exclusive negotiations to buy the Alder Castle building at 10 Noble St. for 100 million pounds. A fund managed by M&G Real Estate is selling the building, which went up in 1999.
According to the building’s website, it has undergone an “extensive refurbishment” and features “high-quality office accommodation.” Amenities include terraces and green spaces; a “discreet drop-off”; shower and locker facilities; bike storage; access to public transportation; LED lighting throughout; 24-hour security; and “striking views” across the city, including a view of nearby St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Among the tenants leasing space at the central London building are Lloyds Banking Group, which occupies more than 45,000 square feet of office space in the lower half of the building; asset manager MSS Capital; and the law firms WilmerHale and Paul Weiss.
The LDS Church referred questions to Property Reserve Inc., which declined to comment on the report.
For claiming to be lead by someone who eschewed material possessions and said to not lay up treasure in this world but in the next, the Church sure owns a lot of real estate and commercial enterprises. The fact that an organization that claims to be lead by Christ is so money-obsessed is in no small measure explainable by the fact that its founder (and second founder, so to speak, Brigham) were so money obsessed.
"The truth is elegantly simple. The lie needs complex apologia. 4 simple words: Joe made it up. It answers everything with the perfect simplicity of Occam's Razor. Every convoluted excuse withers." - Some guy on Reddit called disposazelph
Not Buying It wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 11:03 am
For claiming to be lead by someone who eschewed material possessions and said to not lay up treasure in this world but in the next, the Church sure owns a lot of real estate and commercial enterprises. The fact that an organization that claims to be lead by Christ is so money-obsessed is in no small measure explainable by the fact that its founder (and second founder, so to speak, Brigham) were so money obsessed.
It's an amazing thing to try and reconcile that with the modern day church, and it's even more amazing how members will brush it off as a necessary thing to help the poor, even though they have more than enough money to do so already and their giving is not correlated to their *massive* increase in wealth.
I give a lot of reason that I find the church harmful, but this is one way where I feel they are truly dangerous... they are probably worth a minimum of a half trillion dollars and likely are going to be closer to 1T or more... that's a ton of money for an organization like that to have IMO.
But hopefully their continued quest to be mainstream will help them not do anything truly dangerous.
A major new rental community in the heart of Irving's Las Colinas community has just changed hands. Apartment builder JPI sold its new Jefferson Las Colinas, which opened last year with 386 units. The six-acre rental community is on Las Colinas Boulevard just north of Northwest Highway. JPI senior vice president Matt Brendel said the project is "one of the prominent properties within the city's Urban Center." JPI did not disclose the buyer of the apartment community.
But it was purchased by Utah-based Property Reserve Inc., a real estate investment and development company owned by the of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, county deed records show. Terms of the sale were not disclosed. The rental community is valued for property taxes at almost $45 million. Apartment Realty Advisors brokered the sale of the property. The apartment community has been renamed Fountain Pointe Las Colinas.
The apartments just sold are one of three large rental developments Irving-based JPI has underway in the Las Colinas Urban Center. JPI is building the 371-unit Jefferson Riverside apartments on the corner of Riverside Drive and Northwest Highway that will start opening early next year. JPI's Jefferson on Lake Carolyn apartments on Lake Carolyn Parkway and California Crossing have 422 units and will open next summer.
Raytheon Corp.'s new office campus in Richardson's $1.5 billion CityLine project has sold. The three-building, 500,000-square-foot office complex on Bush Turnpike east of Plano Road cost almost $100 million to develop. It's been purchased by Property Reserve Inc., a real estate and investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Finished in early 2016, the four-story office campus houses almost 1,700 workers for Raytheon, the Massachusetts-based high-tech and defense manufacturer. The Mormon Church bought the Raytheon offices from Dallas-based developer KDC, which is developing the entire 186-acre CityLine mixed-use project.
Raytheon occupies the buildings on a long-term lease running through 2026. Commercial real estate firm CBRE marketed the buildings for sale by KDC. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. CBRE's John Alvarado, Gary Carr, Eric Mackey, Robert Hill and Pete VanAmburgh brokered the deal. KDC paid off a $76.6 million construction loan on the property at the time of sale, Collin County deed records show. With the Raytheon campus sale, KDC has now sold both of the major office projects it built at CityLine.
In November, KDC sold the four-tower State Farm Insurance campus at CityLine for $825 million to a partnership of Houston-based Transwestern Investment Group and a South Korean investor. CityLine is one of the largest and most successful real estate projects in North Texas. Along with the offices for State Farm and Raytheon, the development includes retail, restaurants, a hotel and hundreds of new apartments. Raytheon campus buyer Property Reserve is based in Salt Lake City and owns real estate all over the country. In the Dallas area, the investor has apartments in Las Colinas and Plano and industrial buildings in Carrollton.
Everything is shaping up for a few guys in another generation or two to make themselves incredibly wealthy. As the church becomes more and more a commercial venture, with leaders chosen from lawyers and businessmen it seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Considering the things people like Cook and Hamula have done, it may not really be that farfetched.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain
Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."
The church is going to need all the money it can get because the church is going to start to shrink in about a decade. This money will then be used to buy up the remaining Christian churches like the Baptist’s, the Pentecostals, Presbyterians, and maybe even the JWs. Then the church will be mainstream as it will own all the mainstream churches. It can then count all of their members as its members...
Hope the Church is right about making some money from this huge investment. S129,000,000 for a building of only 13,700 square feet seems like a lot of money.
We need to remember that the Church has a reminder on those tithing receipts that the money can be used in any way it sees fit and is not just for helping people or other religious purposes. Someone needs to gamble on real estate speculations and pork belly futures. Just think of yourself as fellow gamblers. Think of it as mad money that would otherwise be blown on feeding the poor and destitute, but this way it could end up as more gold shekels in the Church portfolio to be stashed away in the Cayman Islands account or used on future speculations.
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha
moksha wrote: ↑Thu May 02, 2019 11:11 pm
Hope the Church is right about making some money from this huge investment. S129,000,000 for a building of only 13,700 square feet seems like a lot of money.
We need to remember that the Church has a reminder on those tithing receipts that the money can be used in any way it sees fit and is not just for helping people or other religious purposes. Someone needs to gamble on real estate speculations and pork belly futures. Just think of yourself as fellow gamblers. Think of it as mad money that would otherwise be blown on feeding the poor and destitute, but this way it could end up as more gold shekels in the Church portfolio to be stashed away in the Cayman Islands account or used on future speculations.
Well, the guy who owns all the money (including tithing money) can legally do what he wants with it. Take his 14 best buddies and their wives with him to Rome (and anywhere else he wants to). If you suddenly became a billionaire and you were in your mid-nineties, you might think about using some of those resources available to you.
The biggest deception, in my opinion, is that there's more than one legal member of the Church. And that the next guy in line, after that man dies, is already set up, per the articles of incorporation.
There are 2 Gods. One who created us. The other you created. The God you made up is just like you-thrives on flattery-makes you live in fear.
Believe in the God who created us. And the God you created should be abolished.
PK
