Granite Ridge: 'Not a fire sale' but North East campus to hit market

NORTH EAST — Granite Ridge's owners are gauging whether there's enough interest to sell or lease all or portions of the 75-acre campus.

Announced in a letter to the community Monday, Granite Ridge's owners said they "appreciate the deep value a full campus user can bring," and have been approached by "local individuals and investors seeking" to potentially acquire not just the entire campus, but smaller pieces of the property.

"Given the unique nature of the facilities, as well as the undeveloped fields, we are exploring various options for greatest impact," the letter says. "Considering the interest, we have determined it best to list the property as available for both lease and sale to interested parties who will assist with preserving the campus for generations to come."

But Bill Unger, director of operations for Granite Ridge, told the Erie Times-News that, "This is not a fire sale."

"It's an opportunity to find additional partners," he said. "It may lead to more leases and it may lead to somebody that, you know, sees some vacant land and wants to build a few houses or something. There's a lot of possibilities when you open up the doors for different things. Hopefully, we find some great partners."

Word of a yet-to-be-posted real estate listing is the first significant news out of Granite Ridge, the former home of the Mercyhurst North East campus, since the owners scrapped plans to partner with Alexandria, Virginia-based Culmen International LLC to turn the historic property into an influx care facility for unaccompanied migrant children crossing the southern border.

Since buying the property for $4.5 million in late January 2022, Baltimore-based Ehrenfeld Companies has considered a range of uses for it, including as a sports training facility similar to the S.P.I.R.E. Institute in Geneva, Ohio, which is among the various properties it owns. Then came the possible partnership with Culmen International, which had first sought to buy the campus from Mercyhurst University but was too late in the process.

And all along, owners have also been looking for different uses for different spaces, while focusing primarily on the town houses on the north side of the property and other residential spaces within older buildings. They subdivided the vacant greenspace on the northwest corner of the property to build cottages.

Unger said the project hasn't moved forward yet due to current housing market conditions.

The company has targeted caterers, event planners, groups that need space for social or business events, youth or sports camps or for theatre performances.

Recently, the campus hosted the stage adaptation of Erie theater veteran David Durst's "The Pizza Bomber Play: A Devoted Surrender" at the Alex Clemente Theatre. Performances concluded on Aug. 27, the day before the 20th anniversary of the infamous Erie bank robbery.

It also partnered with Erie Wedding & Events Services, which is leasing office space, to "activate" St. Mary's Chapel as a wedding venue, and it's working with a local couple on programming for the gymnasium.

But one major sticking point remains for the owner, Jonathan Ehrenfeld, who in May said he'd never seen a property's tax valuation set higher than the sale price of the property itself, which in this case is $6.6 million verses the $4.5 million he paid. The higher the valuation the higher the company's tax bill.

Unger said Wednesday that efforts to lower the valuation are ongoing but no decision on the company's appeal has been made by the Erie County Board of Tax Assessment Appeals.

Ehrenfeld said in the spring that Granite Ridge would be unable to cover its costs because of tax bill unless it finds a single user for the property.

"Jonathan had mentioned that absent a larger user, it definitely has its challenges," Unger said. "Now we have an opportunity to maybe bring in some additional partners that will help facilitate it. We remain committed, we truly do, to the ideas and the options that are out there."

Unger said he wants the public's feedback.

"We want to see more local support," he said. "People spoke up heavily on what we were doing (when the migrant facility was being considered), but it has gone silent since then."

Matthew Rink can be reached at [email protected].