(April 4, 2023 Update: The sale agreement described below fell through. However, St. Francis completed the sale of its campus to a new buyer on April 4, 2023. See my Leaflet post on the finalized sale after reading my thoughts about the prospects of making something of the former campus.)
From the Brooklyn Heights Blog on February 18:
Today The Real Deal reported that St. Francis had sold its now vacant campus, located between Remsen and Joralemon streets on the block between Clinton and Court, to Alexico Group, a developer of — guess what? — luxury residences.
St. Francis is a relatively small college that was, until last year, situated in Brooklyn Heights (I suppose you could argue Downtown Brooklyn depending on whether you draw the neighborhood boundary at Clinton or Court). While there are many beautiful Catholic churches and and architecture in this general area of Brooklyn, the St. Francis building has some unfortunate modern flourishes which should have never made it out of the 60s (not clear from the image in the link). That block also happens to be the gloomiest block in Brooklyn Heights — although it is downright cheery compared to the fourth world situation around the corner on Court Street. I wonder what these developers are going to do with it. Blow the whole thing up and start over? Gut it and remodel? I’m not sure what they can do about the dreariness of that particular block, but half of the block is adjacent to Packer, a private school, which takes care of its property (the less that is said about the other side of the street the better).