The university is in the process of closing a contract to sell its presidential condominium in Rittenhouse Square for $2.88 million, university officials said last week.
The condo was on the market for no more than two weeks, said Bill Bergman, Temple’s vice president for public affairs.
Market value for one of the 29 units in the building is estimated at $3.1 million, according to the real estate database Zillow.
Temple quietly purchased the property in 2001 for $1.25 million to house former president David Adamany and “provide good quality of entertainment for those interested in Temple,” Adamany told The Temple News in 2003.
The 3,200-square-foot unit has three bedrooms, four bathrooms, a living room and an eat-in kitchen. It is in one of the most expensive buildings on Rittenhouse Square.
The unit was initially purchased to provide Adamany somewhere to speak with potential Temple donors, with the intention of Adamany purchasing his own home in the future, The Temple News reported in 2003.
Officials quoted in that story said the condo was not meant to be “every president’s residence,” but Adamany and former presidents Ann Weaver Hart and Neil Theobald lived in the condo during their tenures.
“The Board felt as though that they would want to have a residency in a different way in the future,” Bergman said. “President [Richard] Englert has a home, there’s just no reason to have this and it was put up for sale and sold very quickly.”
Students and faculty members organized protests at the Rittenhouse Square building to voice their concerns to the then-president in the years following the university’s purchase. In 2004, a Temple Student Government-organized protest outside the condo brought more than 100 Temple students to voice their concerns about the declining minority population.
Similarly, unions like Temple’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Temple Association of University Professionals protested in front of the condo in 2009 after firings of AFSCME workers.
Before Adamany, there was no official residence for Temple presidents, and those who held the position purchased their own homes.
“It’s right on Rittenhouse Square, it’s great,” Bergman said. “But we’re moving on.”
Gillian McGoldrick can be reached at gillian.mcgoldrick@temple.edu or on Twitter @gill_mcgoldrick.
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