Archdiocese to sell or lease some St. Charles Borromeo Seminary land

Theology is shrinking its footprint at the intersection of City and Lancaster Avenues in Lower Merion.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia said Thursday that it would explore selling or leasing 45 acres of the St. Charles Borromeo Seminary campus in Lower Merion, consolidating in older buildings on 30 acres in the back of the property.

The move follows Eastern University's relocation last year of its Palmer Theological Seminary from the southwest corner of that intersection to a rented space one-fifth the size in King of Prussia.

Over the next three to five years, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary will vacate the palatial college building that was built in 1928 and dominates the view of the property from Lancaster Avenue, the archdiocese said.

Proceeds from selling or leasing underused land and buildings will be used to help pay for renovations of existing buildings, parts of which have been mothballed for 35 years, officials said.

"St. Charles Borromeo Seminary is the heart of our church in Philadelphia, and we remain dedicated to not only maintaining its presence in our community but strengthening it for many generations to come," Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said in a news release.

Since arriving in Philadelphia from Denver in September 2011, Chaput has been working to improve the church's financial health by selling real estate, trimming operations, closing schools, and consolidating parishes.

An open question until Thursday was what the archdiocese would do with the seminary, founded in 1832 and moved to its current location in 1871. Deliberations included moving it to a new site.

Like other seminaries, St. Charles, which displays the grandiosity of a different era in some of its buildings, has seen enrollment declines.

In the mid-1950s and again in the mid-1960s, the seminary had enrollments of more than 500, said Bishop Timothy Senior, who became rector of the seminary in July.

"You wouldn't want to run a seminary today with 500 students" because it wouldn't allow the individualized attention needed today, Senior said.

"You wouldn't take seminarians and put them in barracks" with sinks down the middle, as was the case in the massive college building that will be vacated, Senior said.

Seminary enrollment is now 128, Senior said. "We will be able to grow to about 200" in the new configuration, he estimated.

Senior said that 45 of the seminarians are in the college program, housed in the massive building. Seminarians can earn a bachelor's degree in philosophy before entering the graduate program, which leads to ordination as a priest.

The archdiocese also announced that the seminary board had agreed to appoint a task force to analyze the future of the college division. One possibility is continuation in collaboration with a local university, Senior said.

Overall enrollment at the facility, including part-time lay programs, has fallen from a recent high of 343 in 1995 to 189 in 2010, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Education data. Those figures use a formula to convert part-time students into full-time equivalents.

Senior said it was too soon to determine the cost of renovations, which could start early next year.

The land will join other archdiocesan real estate on the market.

Those properties include land on Vine Street near the church's Center City headquarters, a 68-acre parcel in Hilltown, Bucks County, where plans for a new high school were scrapped, and open land in Delaware County behind Cardinal O'Hara High School and the Don Guanella School, a residence in Marple Township for developmentally disabled men.

Completed deals last year included the sales of the former St. Joseph's Villa by the Sea in Ventnor, N.J., for $4.1 million and the cardinal's residence on City Avenue for $10 million.

Finding a new use for the 1928 college building and surrounding land will not be easy, said Walter D'Alessio, a Philadelphia real estate executive who serves on a voluntary real estate advisory panel for the archdiocese.

D'Alessio said that the most likely use would be residential development, rather than for retail or a hotel. He cautioned, however, that it would be very expensive to renovate the building into apartments.

"It's like a museum when you walk through parts of it," D'Alessio said. "It's very dated. It hasn't had a major renovation at all."