SACREAD HEART UNIVERSITY TO PURCHASE THE JEWISH HOME PROPERTY

Sacred Heart University has agreed to purchase Jewish Senior Services’ current property, also known as The Jewish Home, on Jefferson Street in Fairfield for $16.5 million after the relocation of their campus is completed in 2016. The purchase will add 15.6 acres of adjacent land to Sacred Heart’s main campus. Jewish Senior Services, has started construction on a new intergenerational campus on Park Avenue that will allow for the creation of the first “household” model nursing home in the State of Connecticut.

Sacred Heart University and neighboring Jewish Senior Services have worked collaboratively for over 40 years to educate health care professionals. That partnership will continue after the move.

Jewish Senior Services will not only build a new nursing home, but also develop an innovative and exciting new intergenerational community. Construction on the new site is expected to take two years and be completed by spring 2016.

“While we are a long way from taking ownership of the property, we are excited about beginning long-term planning for this land,” said SHU President John J. Petillo. “This property is surrounded on all three sides by Sacred Heart’s main campus and it will, in time, add immeasurably to the facilities we will be able to offer future students. Among other possibilities, I hope that it will provide a solution to our current shortage of on-campus housing for our students, which has been a topic of much discussion with our neighbors over the past few years.”

Sacred Heart University’s main campus has been adjacent to what is currently Jewish Senior Services since 1963. During our 50th anniversary year, it seems appropriate to announce what would be the University’s single largest addition to its main campus in its history, Petillo noted. When complete, the purchase of 15.6 acres from Jewish Senior Services will increase Sacred Heart’s current footprint of 77 acres by 20 percent.

The University is currently constructing a new academic building on the corner of Jefferson Street and Park Avenue, scheduled to open in 2015, that will house the John F. Welch College of Business and Department of Communication & Media Studies. Plans are also under way to build a Student Success Center across the street on Park Avenue.

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Contacts: Funda Alp, 203-396-8241, alpf@sacredheart.edu              
Tracy Deer-Mirek, 203-371-7751, deer-mirekt@sacredheart.edu

About Sacred Heart University Sacred Heart University, the second-largest independent Catholic university in New England, offers more than 50 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs on its main campus in Fairfield, Connecticut, and satellites in Connecticut, Luxembourg and Ireland. More than 6,400 students attend the University’s five colleges: Arts & Sciences; Health Professions; University College; the AACSB-accredited John F. (Jack) Welch College of Business; and the NCATE-accredited Isabelle Farrington College of Education. The Princeton Review includes SHU in its guides “Best 378 Colleges – 2014 Edition,” “Best in the Northeast” and “Best 295 Business Schools – 2014 Edition.” U.S. News & World Report ranks SHU among the best master’s universities in the North in its annual “America’s Best Colleges” publication. Sacred Heart was also mentioned in Money magazine’s ranking of Fairfield as the 64thbest town to live. As one of just 23 institutions nationally, SHU is a member of the Association of American Colleges & Universities’ (AAC&U) Core Commitments Leadership Consortium, in recognition of its core, “The Human Journey.” SHU fields 31 Division I athletic teams, and has an award-winning program of community service. www.sacredheart.edu

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