Marymount on Market; Fordham Leases Space in County

TARRYOWN, NY-Fordham University has put its Marymount College campus here on the market for sale and has hired White Plains-based GHP Office Realty as its exclusive sales agent. Fordham, which took over the storied Marymount College in 2002, will be shifting operations from the campus to new leased facilities in Harrison in 2008.

The Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary founded Marymount College in 1907. Fordham University recently announced plans seeking a buyer for the 25-acre campus. University officials say the move was driven by “the disproportionately high cost of supporting the reduced operations on the Tarrytown campus.”

The university plans to move its Westchester operations, which include graduate schools of education, social service and business as well as its Fordham College of Liberal Studies, to leased space at 400 Westchester Ave. in Harrison, a former Verizon building that was purchased by a GHP Office Realty partnership earlier this year. The university has signed a 20-year lease for the entire 62,500-sf building. The 400 Westchester Ave. building was part of the purchase of a nearly 1.7-million-sf portfolio of Verizon Communications industrial and office space in eight states by GHP Office Purchasing LLC, a White Plains-based entity controlled by GHP Office Realty and Benerofe Properties. Local sources valued the deal at approximately $150 million. Classes at Marymount will continue until the end of the current academic year.