Churches find it prays to invest in real estate.

Trinity Church has been supporting itself from its Manhattan property for a long while. In 1705, when England's Queen Anne granted it 215 acres stretching from where the church sits presently in the heart of Downtown up to Christopher Street and to the banks of the Hudson, Trinity established a farm on the rolling, pastoral land to support itself.

Nearly 300 years later, the church still supports itself primarily from this property. But today's harvest of rent roles is a lot more bountiful. Although Trinity donated a portion of its landholdings to Columbia University in the mid 1700s, the church had the foresight to develop a number of industrial buildings throughout the 1920s on parcels of its property in the area known today as Hudson Square. Now the king of the neighborhood, which is sandwiched between TriBeCa, Greenwich Village and SoHo, Trinity has an entire real estate arm dedicated to managing, leasing and developing its properties and is one of the biggest landowning churches in the city.

Trinity isn't alone in its longevity and ability to harness real estate as a means of financial support. Established in Manhattan in 1628, Collegiate predates Trinity and is not far behind in its real estate holdings. Still claiming its right to deal its property from a royal charter awarded to it by King William III in 1696, Collegiate Church is the nation's oldest corporation and owns 11 John Street, 198 Broadway, 45 John Street, 150 Fulton Street, and 3 West 29th street, among others. While it is a non-profit institution, Collegiate's income has been enough to support not only itself, but also the Reform Church of America of which it is a part.

"Real estate has been the key thing in supporting Collegiate and also allowing it to become a substantial benefactor," a spokesperson for the church said. Real estate isn't just a fulcrum for bigger church institutions with entire arms dedicated to the management and improvement of their portfolios. Despite being slightly more tedious without having on hand a fulltime team of real estate professionals, real estate holdings, owned in modest quantities, have benefited smaller churches as well. A small Baptist church in Midtown, which asked to remain anonymous, has parlayed its relatively few commercial real estate properties into a means of support. "It's the one thing that's allowed us to continue to be a small community church in the heart of Midtown," said the church's pastor. Trinity's tenure as a real estate heavyweight hasn't come without its adversity. In the 1930s when the Great Depression hit, many tenants couldn't pay their rents and developers defaulted on ground lease payments. The church had to consolidate its debt in loans that it couldn't pay off until the 1950s and from then on has been very careful not to incur debt.

"We only develop when there's a lead developer and an anchor tenant in place," said Jason Pizer, one of the lead building agents at Trinity. "We plan to continue developing, but only when those factors are in place and we feel there's enough of a demand on the market for more office space." Trinity's conservatism hasn't prevented it from renovating and improving its many Hudson Square office properties. Updating its buildings with modern amenities, new lobbies and elevators, Trinity has attracted a different breed of tenant and has made Hudson Square a trendy spot for creative-type tenants.

Pizer said, "We've changed the neighborhood from an industrial area to a thriving creative office-type market. Having this flourishing real estate arm has made Trinity what it is."