Saint Joseph’s University announced today that it has reached an agreement to sell its buildings south of Woodland Avenue to the Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance for an undisclosed sum.

“Potential plans for the space 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,” a university statement emailed to university faculty and staff this morning read.

Property developer Michael Karp is the chair of Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance’s board of directors. The non-profit runs a charter school network in West Philadelphia and Center City.

Karp, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, also started University City Housing, one of the largest property owners and managers in the area.

Karp’s involvement in the sale has drawn criticism from Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents the surrounding community.

“St. Joe’s chose a quick payout instead, ignoring years of work done by my office and the community by selling most of the campus to a group owned by Michael Karp, a student housing real estate mogul,” she said in a statement. “By selling off a major part of their West Philly campus without any firm guarantees for its future use, it is clear that St. Joe’s only goal was to milk as much money out of our neighborhood as possible, without any consideration for those of us who live here.”

St. Joe’s will retain the cluster of buildings north of Woodland Avenue, including much of the historical footprint of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, which became the University of the Sciences in 1998. These include Griffith Hall, the historic home of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, Kline Hall, the Pharmacology/Toxicology Center (PTC), the McNeil Graduate Study and Research Center and Whitecar Hall.

The university will also lease back from the Belmont Neighborhood Educational Alliance three buildings – IPEX, Woodland Hall and Glasser Hall – that “will continue to house our graduate health professions and pharmaceutical science programs,” according to the university’s statement.

St. Joe’s will begin planning its exit from the large Living and Learning Commons building on Woodland Avenue next summer. Opened in 2019, that building was constructed on the former site of the demolished Alexander Wilson School, a neighborhood school sold by the city during downsizing and school closings.

The announcement comes days after the university announced that it sold three other former USciences properties, including Osol Hall, a large residential building near 42nd and Chester, and East Building, a two-story administrative building at 42nd and Woodland, for $5.5 million to a property developer. The university also sold “Triangle Park,” the approximately 3,000-square-foot lot at the southern tip of Clark Park.

St. Joe’s, which is located along City Avenue in northwest Philly, acquired USciences in 2022 for its myriad science- and health-related programs, their accreditations and faculty. Most of those programs have since moved to the university’s City Avenue (Hawk Hill) campus. Soon after the acquisition, SJU began courting potential buyers for the Usciences campus buildings and land.