Miles Faculty has a deal to purchase Birmingham-Southern Faculty’s 192-acre campus for an undisclosed quantity.
Trustees for Miles, a non-public, traditionally Black establishment in Fairfield, Alabama, voted unanimously to approve the acquisition settlement.
The deal follows a letter of intent Miles submitted to Birmingham-Southern shortly after the school shuttered in Could.
Phrases of the settlement weren’t disclosed.
For Miles, the Birmingham-Southern campus acquisition “will enable tutorial packages, analysis, and innovation to thrive in a collaborative atmosphere with native and international partnerships,” the school stated within the announcement.
“This chance is a big subsequent step in our imaginative and prescient to raise our faculty, campus, and neighborhood,” Miles President Bobbie Knight stated in an announcement.
Birmingham-Southern President Daniel Coleman famous in an announcement that the sale is “for the bodily property — acreage and buildings — however not the Faculty itself.”
The land and buildings owned by Birmingham-Southern amounted to $2.2 million and $147.4 million respectively on its stability sheet as of Could 2023, in line with the school’s newest financials. Different property enhancements had been valued at $20.3 million.
Simply 5 miles away from one another, Birmingham-Southern and Miles each have histories extending again greater than a century. Birmingham-Southern’s fall headcount stood at 975 in 2022, down 24% from 5 years prior. Miles’ fall enrollment additionally dropped at roughly the identical price throughout that interval, falling to 1,258 in 2022.
Birmingham-Southern shuttered in late Could amid long-running monetary woes. After Alabama lawmakers handed a legislation that seemed prefer it would possibly preserve the school afloat, Birmingham-Southern’s software for a $30 million mortgage was denied by the state’s treasurer, Younger Boozer. The faculty’s trustees voted unanimously to shut the school following Boozer’s contentious resolution.
Birmingham-Southern continues to exist as a company entity through the wind-down course of. In line with Coleman, that features “wrapping up a spread of enterprise issues.”
Left for Birmingham-Southern to do is figure with the Alabama lawyer normal’s workplace, as soon as the campus sale closes, to create a plan for the way forward for the school’s endowment. Any plan would require courtroom approval, and all the course of may take months and even years to finish, Coleman stated.
Knight and Coleman will “work collectively to place the legacy of Birmingham Southern and the way forward for Miles Faculty,” the universities stated.
The Birmingham-Southern campus stays closed within the meantime till additional discover, in line with the discharge.
