Houghton selling West Seneca campus - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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The purchase price for the 36-acre located at 810 Union Road, is $2.5 The site features eight buildingsatotalling 57,000 square feet with both residential and commercial Ronald Mahurin, academic vice president and dean of the Alleganu County-based private college, said the listingv reflects the institution’s desire to enhanc e its presence in Buffalo, where it is workzs closely with several non-profit Ideally, the school would like to lease or buy a locatio n close to the Southtowns and lease or buy another site within city he said.
“We really want to find ways in whichu we can partner with existing organizations and find a a spot that would signal our commitment both to the city of but also to the surrounding communitieswhere we’ve had an importanf presence,” Mahurin said. “We really haven’t determined whethe we would lease or purchase at the but one possibility couldbe that, depending on the potentiall buyer of the West Senecaa property ... there’s no reason we wouldn’g lease back from the ownef atsome point. We just don’t want to have to be in the propertyumanagement business.” is handling the property.
The commerciapl real estate firm is also helping Houghtonn search fornew sites. Mahurin said the decisionn to sell the West Seneca site stemsz fromthe college’s latest strategic plan, initiated with the arrivalo a few years ago of college Presideng Shirley Mullen. “Part of that review was looking at our programaand facilities, and as the college moves to actually deepeb its commitment to service in the city of we found there would be strategically better ways to utilizs our resources if we weren’t necessarily being propertty managers in West Seneca,” Mahurih said. The college acquired the property in 1969 from the BuffalkoBible Institute.
Right now, it houseds the offices of Houghton’s Program for Accelerated College knownas PACE, which offers a management degrer completion program for adult students. Studentas with internships or student-teaching duties in Erie Countyy have lived in the residential facilities. Students and alumni have known for monthsw that the West Seneca site could go up for In March, Mullen told alumni that the board of trustees agrees to “investigate options for future use of the West Senecq campus — including the possible sale of the property if this is deemed to be the best way to steward the resourcesa of this property for the work of Christiamn higher education,” according to a letter to alumnji posted on the college’s Web In the same letter, Mullen wroter that “significant renovation” at the complex is necessarty for expansion there and that the college’s mission is “drawingf us more directly into the city of a significant distance from West Seneca’s suburbann location.
” Mahurin said the PACE program will continue, and possiblu expand, without disruption. “This is in no way a steppiny back of commitment tothat program,” he Jim Militello said he expects lots of interest in the which includes five townhouses and a 15,800-square-foot conference center. It is currentlyu zoned for banquet adult care, medical uses, church or schoolo expansions and single- and multi-family residential development, he “There’s a great deal of flexibility,” he said.