Convent conversions: God’s gift to real estate

Nuns have something developers want –– convents. 

Developers are always looking for the next prime slice of real estate on which to build their next big project, and convents are increasingly becoming an appealing option. The American population of nuns is rapidly shrinking and aging. The convents that serve as homes and headquarters for the sisters’ missions now, in many cases, have a question mark hanging over them, and developers are arriving with an answer. And cash.

A former convent was converted into luxury condos in Wilmette, a suburb of Chicago. The 180,000-square-foot building was once an outpost for the Sister of Christian Charity.

Alex and Sue Glasscock, the hoteliers and owners of the Ranch Malibu, dropped $11 million on the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate’s 140-acre estate and 40,000-square-foot mansion in Tuxedo Park, New York, in August. Natale Development bought a decrepit former convent from the Sisters of Mercy in Buffalo for $75,000 in 2017, and officially proposed a senior living development for the site this past November, Buffalo News reported. Accordia Realty Ventures has proposed a 111-unit multifamily development at the Sisters of Christian Charity convent in Mendham, New Jersey, according to Patch.

Institutional and individual buyers are also striking deals with nuns. Long Island’s Bayport and Blue Point communities bought the St. Ursula Center for $3.7 million from the Ursuline Sisters of Tildonk in 2019. Now the Bayport-Blue Point Library, the nuns had been there since 1935, according to Patch. 

Convent purchases don’t always go smoothly, though. Katy Perry infamously wrangled with the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary to buy their eight-acre convent in Los Feliz, California. She lost $2.6 million taking them to court, in addition to the $14.5 million she ultimately paid for the property in 2016. 

“There was a big debate there about who should buy that,” said Dr. Mark M. Gray, director of CARA Catholic Polls at Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). 

Sisters can disagree about the appropriateness of the buyer, sometimes wanting the properties to remain in service of the public in some way, he said. 

“I think there’s a desire for things to remain in the Church, but then also the sisters have to do what’s best for them,” Gray said.  

Sisters doing what’s best for them –– there lies the tension between the Missionary Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate Conception in Newton, Massachusetts, and the high school that uses their property. The aging group of nuns told the Boston Globe that maintaining the property that houses their convent and Mount Alvernia High School is “financially unsustainable.”

Boston College and Newton Country Day School have both made offers on the property, but the nuns don’t appear to be biting. Nonetheless, their decision to sell means the closure of the high school, and the nuns are on the receiving end of the ire of parents and students. 

While sisters and the Church would usually prefer to hold onto properties, the funds from the sales usually go toward supporting a rapidly aging population of nuns. In 2014, only 1 percent of nuns in the U.S. were under the age of 40, according to CARA data. More than 58 percent of nuns were over the age of 70 that year.

To boot, the number of women becoming nuns is plummeting. The population of American nuns peaked in 1966 at 181,000, and hovered at just under 50,000 in 2014, CARA reported. Gray noted the drop is unique to the United States, and that nun populations are growing in many other countries. 

There were just 84 new nuns in the U.S. in 2021, Gray said. “It’s not thousands.”

The decline is proving fruitful for developers. In 2014, SummerHill Homes bought a 10.3-acre convent from the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary for $18 million, Redfin shows. SummerHill developed 17 luxury homes on the site in a project dubbed “Sorellas” (Italian for “sisters”), with prices starting at $3.5 million.