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.