Robert Morris puts its center Downtown up for sale
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Robert Morris University plans to sell its signature but under-utilized Downtown classroom center so it can devote more resources to its residential Moon campus and develop online programs and new locations more attractive to nontraditional students.
The eight-story building at 600 Fifth Ave. that has carried the Robert Morris name for half a century will be listed on the market as soon as this week, university President Gregory G. Dell'Omo confirmed late Wednesday.
The firm HFF has been hired to handle the sale. The school does not plan to advertise a specific asking price.
"We want to see what the market generates," Dr. Dell'Omo said.
The Pittsburgh Center, as many call it, serves undergraduates plus MBA and other graduate students, although in far smaller numbers than decades past. Once the property is sold, media arts classes held Downtown will move to Moon, and other classes, including those for the MBA, will move either there or to other sites.
The center will continue to hold classes during the sale. Leaders pledged Wednesday that it will not impede students from getting courses they need.
"Nobody's graduation will be delayed," Provost David Jamison said.
The school says said no academic programs or faculty positions will be lost, and Robert Morris will maintain a Downtown presence, although what form is still being explored.
"We will find space in the Golden Triangle somewhere," Dr. Jamison said. "We are not abandoning Pittsburgh."
Founded Downtown in 1921 as an accountancy school, Robert Morris established its Moon campus in 1964. In the decades since, as Robert Morris evolved into a comprehensive university with nearly 5,000 students, enrollment and emphasis shifted to the 230-acre suburban site.
About 90 percent of its undergraduates take classes there, and construction at Moon of a new building for the business school is slated for this spring.
Officials said shrinking enrollment in high schools that provided students for the center also contributed to its decline. About 1,500 students took most of their classes Downtown in 1999, but now the total is 376, including 174 undergraduates.
First Published April 15, 2010 12:00 am
