Trinity Wall Street estimates value of its assets at $2 billion plus

I’m suffering some serious endowment envy after reading today that Trinity Wall Street estimates its assets to be in the $2 billion range. From the New York Times:

There has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.

Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.

The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.

Read full story here. What’s the right way to handle so much wealth? Jeremy Bates, the congregant who filed the lawsuit against Trinity, argues that the church”was being too corporate and wasn’t acting on its values.” Susan V. Berresford, a current member of the vestry, calls Trinity “a first-class philanthropic operation and one that is using its resources very wisely.”