Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is selling part of its Los Angeles campus to the nearby University of Southern California, in the latest in a series of cost-cutting moves for a legacy Jewish institution facing years of declining enrollment and financial stress.
Announced Wednesday, the agreement between HUC and USC will fund a major renovation of the Jack H. Skirball Campus and boost HUC’s endowment. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
HUC students, faculty and staff will continue to occupy the campus’ west wing, but the majority of the property will belong to USC. The two academic institutions have been neighbors since HUC opened its Los Angeles campus in 1954 and partners in joint academic programs since 1972.
The downsizing in Los Angeles is part of a larger strategy that has also affected two other U.S. campuses of the Reform movement’s academic and leadership training institution, in New York and Cincinnati.
“The decision to reinvest in the Los Angeles campus…accomplishes the college’s goal of aligning its real estate footprint with academic program and operational needs across all its campuses,” HUC said in its announcement.
The sale comes weeks after HUC announced it was selling its downtown Manhattan campus for about $75 million to New York University and relocating to a smaller $32 million building on the Upper West Side. Recent years have also seen the Cincinnati campus lose its rabbinical program and graduate programs in Jewish studies as part of the restructuring plan.
The Reform movement is not the only Jewish denomination downsizing its educational real estate in Los Angeles amid enrollment declines. American Jewish University, one of Conservative Judaism’s two major educational centers, last year completed a deal to sell its hilltop campus after announcing plans to relocate its rabbinical school to a leased space in an urban Jewish neighborhood.
Renovation plans for the HUC campus include upgraded technology infrastructure and more natural light for the building’s interior, but the project is still being shaped with input from a community-led task force.
Leading the renovation work is Israeli-born, California-raised architect Hagy Blezberg. Among Belzberg’s previous projects are the Los Angeles Jewish Federation’s BAR community center that is currently under construction in Venice Beach and the Holocaust Museum LA.
The HUC sale puts the institution in a better position to fulfill its mission of educating future rabbis and Jewish communal leaders, according to Rabbi Joshua Garroway, the dean of HUC in Los Angeles.
“This sale allows us to invest in our future here in Los Angeles and make much-needed renovations and improvements to the Jack H. Skirball Campus – as we continue to evolve alongside our community and expand access to Jewish leadership education,” Garroway said in a statement.
