Nyack will move into roughly half the space immediately and expects to be fully up and running within a year.

Virga called the rent "very representative of the neighborhood," and comparable to the figure paid for a recent 5-year re-leasing of 30,800 sf of space at 365 Broadway, another Himmel & Meringoff building. The space is leased to the City of New York and is occupied by the Dept. of Juvenile Justice.

Virga said he expects to finalize a separate deal "within a week or so" on an 85,000-sf lease at 729 Broadway.

Originally named the Missionary Training Institute when it was founded in 1882 by the Rev. A. B. Simpson, a leading figure in the American missionary movement, the school moved to Nyack in 1897 where it was rechristened Nyack College.

For 10 years, Nyack operated an extension site in Flushing, Queens in order to provide biblical education to the large Korean community there. In 1995, Nyack began an extension site in TriBeCa offering associate degree programs in order to effectively train those who minister in urban churches.

The two sites merged in 1997 when Nyack secured its current space and began offering complete degree programs. The same year, the Middle States Accrediting Commission granted branch campus status to the Nyack College Manhattan Center.