Historic San Francisco Church Sells to JLA Home

The Academy of Art University’s effort to slim down its San Francisco footprint just notched a small but symbolic win.

The for-profit school sold the historic St. Brigid Church at 2151 Van Ness Avenue in Pacific Heights for $4.7 million, unloading a century-old landmark that has survived two of the biggest disasters to strike the city in modern times, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The buyer is an entity tied to Fremont-based home furnishings company JLA Home.

St. Brigid Church, built in 1902, spans roughly 20,000 square feet and survived both the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. After the Academy of Art University bought the building in 2005 for $3.7 million, it repurposed the space into an auditorium. The property still has features from its church days including a pipe organ and stone facade built from the city’s old curbstones.

The church traded at a “relatively low price,” local broker Charlie McCabe told the Chronicle. McCabe, who has been tracking the Academy of Art University’s broader real estate sell-off, noted that historic religious properties tend to draw a limited buyer pool due to zoning constraints and reuse challenges. Buyer JLA Home already owns property nearby, McCabe said.

The Academy of Art University has been looking to cut its real estate holdings as online and hybrid learning changed its campus needs, according to the school. Last fall, the university listed 11 properties totaling about 375,000 square feet with an asking price around $130 million for the entire portfolio. So far, it has struggled to move the assets in bulk, instead chipping away with individual sales. The properties include a 138,000-square-foot office building at 150 Hayes Street, the former Concordia Argonaut Club at 1142 Van Ness Avenue and the former Commodore Hotel at 825 Sutter Street, which served as student housing and sold last year for $13.1 million.

Over the past decade, the school has faced additional issues including a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office in 2016 accusing the school of illegally converting dozens of buildings for its campus. That legal action led to a $60 million settlement agreement. The school also faced a fraud lawsuit over its recruitment practices that was settled in 2021. And in February, the Western Association for Schools and Colleges issued a formal warning after it found the university to be out of compliance with various key standards regarding finances, governance and graduation rates; the school has until February 2028 to remedy the issues.

— Chris Malone Méndez