Looking east from Church Street: 1. Mondry Building 2. Prentis II Federation Apartments 3. Teitel Federation Apartments
4. Temple Emanu-El
Land Transfer
Temple Emanu-El and United Jewish Foundation agree on property sale.
Alan Hitsky
Associate Editor
T
he United Jewish Foundation
— the land-owning arm
of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit — has reached a
tentative agreement to buy 13.45 acres
owned by Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park.
The temple will remain in its build-
ing, but UJF will
own the property
at 10 Mile and
Church streets,
which is adjacent
to the A. Alfred
Taubman Jewish
Community
Campus and
across Church
from Yeshiva Beth
Sheldon Klein
Yehudah's Beth
Jacob School for
Girls.
Leaders of UJF and Emanu-El believe
the deal is a win-win situation for the
Jewish community. Emanu-El will receive
an unspecified amount from UJF to help it
with short-term and long-term financial
needs. UJF will solidify future space for
the campus and ensure that commercial
development does not disrupt Jewish
institutions in the area.
Sheldon Klein, president of Emanu-El,
said the temple will use the proceeds of
the sale "strictly for capital needs." Short
term, Emanu-El is facing replacement of
a major water main. Longer term, Klein
18 March 8 . 2007
said, "we didn't want to wait for a crisis
situation to plan for the needs of a 50-
plus-year-old building."
He said the congregation would also put
in better signage and "spill up" the park-
ing lot. Long term, "We can improve and
polish our facility," including dealing with
a heating/cooling system that has some
parts that are 40 years old.
"We are not in desperate financial
straits," Klein emphasized. "But it is
appropriate to deal with future needs of
an aging building in a planned way, rather
than during crisis."
Emanu-El, which has 500 members,
approved the sale Feb. 28 by a vote of 75-1.
Congregation by-laws state that 50 mem-
bers are a quorum.
Last May, Emanu-El postponed a vote
on a proposed sale that would have built
condominiums along Church and along 10
Mile to the south and east of the temple's
Jewish Presence
parking lot. That proposal was projected
to raise $768,000 to $1 million for the
temple, depending on the sale of the
condo units.
Behind The Scenes
Both Emanu-El and UJF leaders declined
to reveal the sale price or terms of last
week's deal with UJF, but said it was far
less than the commercial development.
Allan Nachman,
immediate past
president of UJF
and its chief
negotiator with
Emanu-El, said it
was unlikely that
a condo devel-
opment in the
Detroit market in
this economic cli-
mate would raise
Allan Nachman
The A. Alfred Taubman Jewish Community Campus on 10 Mile Road in Oak Park
includes the Jimmy Prentis Morris Building of the Jewish Community Center of
Metropolitan Detroit, the Mondry Building headquarters of Jewish Apartments
& Services, the Prentis and the Teitel Federation Apartments, and the Mikvah
Israel mikvah. The Reconstructionist Congregation T'chiyah meets in the
Mondry Building.
West of the campus, towards Greenfield Road on the north side of 10 Mile,
are Young Israel of Oak Park, the former mikvah building, which is being used
by an Orthodox prayer group, and B'nai Israel-Beth Yehudah.
On the south side of 10 Mile are Machon L'Torah and Bais Chabad of North
Oak Park. To the east of the campus are Temple Emanu-El and the Yeshiva Beth
Yehudah's Beth Jacob School for Girls.
the dollars projected by the developer.
He said a UJF committee of real estate
attorneys and developers reviewed the site
and helped draw up "a fair proposal."
Bea Sachs of Huntington Woods, a
founding member and a past president of
Emanu-El, said there was "a jubilant feel-
ing throughout the sanctuary" after last
week's vote. She said the condominium
development might have brought in more
dollars, but "would the [Oak Park] zon-
ing board approve it, would the Orthodox
community like it and would all the
condos be sold?" She added that there
was opposition within the congregation
against development on the property.
"I thank the Federation very much for
the road we are going down:' Sachs said.
Lloyd Strausz of West Bloomfield, an
Emanu-El member since 1961, said he
originally favored the sale to the builder.
But he credited Emanu-El's sale com-
mittee for doing "a heckuva fine job" and
joked that he was not the lone voter last
week that opposed the sale to UJF.
Jennifer Wolin Patterson of Farmington
Hills, Emanu-El's immediate past presi-
dent, said the deal "was a hard decision,
but the right one. Most important is for
the congregation to continue to thrive,
and this will help us do that. It will help us
move forward and have a bright future."
The Precedents
The purchase of the Emanu-El property
by United Jewish Foundation is one of
several similar transactions the Jewish
Federation has made since the late 1980s.