As several small colleges in New England have closed in the last few years or announced they were closing, there has been a lot of campus real estate in flux. Now, at least one of those campuses has a new owner.
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Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch has finalized an agreement to buy a 28-property campus in Quincy that was once home to a small Christian college.
The city has agreed to buy the former Eastern Nazarene College campus, which consists of 14 buildings and 14 residential properties, for $21M, the Boston Business Journal first reported.
The school closed in May 2025, citing financial and demographic challenges.
The sale still needs approval from the Quincy City Council and the Massachusetts attorney general before it can move forward.
Proceeds from the deal will go toward the college's debts and several other potential, unspecified projects to honor the college's legacy, the BBJ reported.
The city wasn't the only interested party in the 27-acre site.
Last year, the college's board of trustees reached an agreement to sell the campus to Crain Co. CEO Graham Crain, an alumnus of the school. Crain said he planned to create a large residential development on the site.
However, that deal fell through, opening up the opportunity for the city to intervene, The Boston Globe reported.
Quincy city officials first showed interest in purchasing the campus in February. Koch said the purchase would ensure no "high-density housing" would be developed at the site.
The sale comes as other smaller colleges across the state have fallen on hard times.
Last month, Hampshire College announced it was closing after its fall 2026 semester. The college sits on an 800-acre campus in western Massachusetts near the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Just a week later, Anna Maria College in Paxton announced it was set to close after the spring semester and lay off 150 employees. The college sits on some 260 acres near Worcester.
Over the last decade, 32 New England colleges have shut their doors, while 16 others have either merged or lost their accreditation, the Boston Business Journal reported.
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