Atlantic Union College, with no future uses in sight for the 135-acre property in Lancaster, has begun selling off properties, beginning with a $610,000 sale of a two-acre parcel.
The parcel, sold to Shrewsbury entity Villani Real Estate LLC, includes a 41,700-square-foot office building. Villani is registered to Giuseppe and Mario Villani, of Lancaster.
The Seventh Day Adventist college, which closed at the end of the spring semester in 2018, is now largely for sale after church officials voted at a May 19 meeting to list a majority of the property for sale, according to a news release from the Atlantic Union Conference’s website.
The Thayer Mansion, a 21,800-square-foot, 116-year-old building owned by the school, is the only property not for sale. The 52-acre property will continue to be used as a music school and other activities by Atlantic Union Conference.
Proceeds from any sale of the buildings will be used to help pay off the college’s $2.4 million in outstanding loan debt.
Daily upkeep of the campus is costing the conference $9,219 each day and $520,000 in yearly taxes and municipal services like water and sewer.
The conference had been meeting with interested parties to discuss possible future uses, but none of those meetings resulted in feasible outcomes, the conference said in the news release.
The college of less than 60 students announced on Feb. 21, 2018 that it would stop offering degrees at the end of the academic year. That decision was made as a result of a feasibility study of the college’s operations, the college’s trustees and conference said in a joint statement last year.
