The university announced the sale of multiple properties at the University City campus in a Sept. 12 email to students from Jill Dougherty Cleary, B.S. ’00, Ed.D. ’23, vice president of administration and operations, and Joseph Kender, senior vice president of university relations.
A total of 15 buildings are included in the sale, wrote Kevin Gfeller, associate director of public relations in the Office of Marketing and Communications, in an email to The Hawk.
All buildings south of Woodland Avenue will be sold, but St. Joe’s will retain ownership of the buildings north of Woodland Avenue, according to the Sept. 12 email. This includes Griffith Hall, Kline Hall, the Pharmacology/Toxicology Center, McNeil Graduate Study and Research Center and Whitecar Hall.
Additionally, the university will lease back three buildings from the buyer: the Integrated Professional Education Complex, Woodland Hall and Glasser Hall. This will allow the university to “maintain a hub for graduate health professions and pharmaceutical science programs” at the UCity campus, Gfeller said.
The Sept. 12 email also said St. Joe’s is planning its “departure from the Living and Learning Commons, which is anticipated in the late summer 2026.” The LLC has the capacity for 416 residents and is the only housing option for students at the UCity campus.
The UCity Office of Public Safety and Security, which was previously located in Alumni Hall, south of Woodland Avenue, has been moved to Griffith Hall and is now fully operational out of the new office, Gfeller said.
Gfeller said the Office of Facilities Management, also formerly located south of Woodland Avenue, has been relocated to the Griffith Annex, and remaining materials in the warehouse spaces will be moved within the next month.
According to the Sept. 12 email, the properties are being sold to the Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance, a non-profit that runs a Philadelphia-based network of charter schools. Michael Karp, a real estate mogul who owns student housing in University City and West Philadelphia, is the chair of the Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance board of directors.
The Sept. 12 email also states that potential plans for the properties include “a new affordable teachers college, which may help alleviate Philadelphia’s chronic shortage of well-qualified and experienced teachers, as well as a potential new school emphasizing public service and leadership.” The email states these plans “align with [the university’s] Jesuit mission.”