Office park owner pays $16.3M for Good Counsel campus

An owner of The Centre at Purchase office park has paid approximately $16.3 million to acquire the Good Counsel campus on North Broadway in White Plains, ending the 125-year presence of a teaching order of Roman Catholic nuns whose plans to close two parochial schools on the historic site sparked protests by parents and alumni in 2015.

An entity of George Comfort & Sons Inc. closed in late November on the $16,265,000 purchase of the 16-acre property at 52 N. Broadway from Sisters of the Divine Compassion, whose founder, Mother Mary Veronica, established the private academic complex in 1890. The buyer”™s identity and the purchase price, filed in Westchester County land records in mid-December, were not disclosed in an initial announcement of the sale from the Sisters of the Divine Compassion”™s spokesperson in late November.

Based in Manhattan, where most of its real estate investments and managed properties are, George Comfort & Sons also owns and operates the 676,000-square-foot Centre at Purchase in a joint venture with O”™Connor Capital Partners and 900 King St., a 215,000-square-foot office property in Rye Brook. Across the Connecticut border in Stamford, the commercial real estate firm owns the 573,000-square-foot High Point Park and Shippan Landing, a 780,000-square-foot office complex formerly called Harbor Plaza.

Adjoining Pace Law School, the Good Counsel property includes a cluster of 12 buildings with approximately 162,000 square feet of space. Listed on the state and national registers of historic places, the property marks an apparent departure from the buyer”™s previous suburban office-park investments.

The Sisters of the Divine Compassion spokesperson said only that the buyer “is evaluating potential future uses” for the site. Peter S. Duncan, president and CEO of George Comfort & Sons, could not be reached to comment on the purchase and plans for the property.

The landmark stone church on the property, the Chapel of the Divine Compassion, will continue to be used by the nuns for religious services, community celebrations and spirituality programs, and the new owner is working with the religious order to create a heritage space in the chapel, according to the seller”™s spokesperson. The nuns also will maintain congregational leadership and operations offices in a building next to the chapel. Twenty nuns who lived in the congregation”™s motherhouse on the campus have relocated to other residences, assisted living and skilled nursing facilities in the area.

Operating a high school and elementary school on the campus at a reported cost to the 80-member order of more than $600,000 annually and facing financial peril as the congregation’s savings were depleted, Sisters of the Divine Compassion in 2014 hired CBRE Group Inc. to market all or a portion of the North Broadway property for sale. After efforts by parents, alumni and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York to find another location for the school failed, the Academy of Our Lady of Good Counsel High School closed following graduation ceremonies last June. Good Counsel Academy Elementary relocated in September to a former Roman Catholic school building in Valhalla.

Funds from the property sale will pay for living expenses and health care needs of the sisters over the next 30 years, according to the spokesperson, and enable the nuns to continue their educational, spiritual and human services work in Westchester, the Hudson Valley and the Bronx.

In a prepared statement, Sister Carol Wagner, president of the Divine Compassion order, said the Sisters “have been blessed with the Good Counsel campus site for 125 years, and the necessity of putting the property on the market has posed painful and difficult challenges on many different levels. We deeply appreciate the support and understanding that we have received from so many people as we worked our way through the sale process.”

“We are also extremely pleased that the beautiful Divine Compassion Chapel constructed by Mother Mary Veronica will not only be preserved and enhanced, but that it will remain an active ongoing sacred place of worship, prayer and spiritual growth for us and the larger community into the future.”