Chinese-Backed Buyer Adds Pace's Briarcliff Campus to Hudson Valley Holdings

The campus owned by Pace University in Briarcliff Manor, empty since Pace completed its extensive expansion and renovation of the Pleasantville campus a few miles away, has been sold to a nonprofit called Research Center on Natural Conservation.

Research Center on Natural Conservation was founded by the CEO of Fang Holdings Ltd, based in Beijing and traded on the Stock Exchange. The company is not involved with the nonprofit, its lawyers told the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The RCNC spent $17.35 million for the property that was once Briarcliff College, with nine buildings on 37 acres, the Westchester Business Journal reported.

The deal was finalized at the end of 2016, Pace officials said: "Pace University sold its Briarcliff Manor property in late December as part of a strategic plan to consolidate facilities and services of the Westchester campus of Pace to its Pleasantville location. As part of this plan, Pace built two new residence halls, a new field house, new athletics fields, and a new environmental center complex as well as expanded its student center. The newly revitalized campus allows for an enhanced living-learning experience with all services and activities for Westchester students in one location.”

The RCNC's other real estate holdings are on the west side of the Hudson River.

Its first foray into Hudson Valley landownership was a historic mansion and protected parkland in Harriman, sold to it by the Open Space Institute in 2011. The Times Herald-Record called Arden House, which was built by E.H. Harriman right before he died in 1909, "a Gilded Age 100,000-square-foot mansion." Ten thousand acres of the Harriman estate became Harriman State Park in 1910.

Arden House is being run as a destination venue, available to be rented for conferences and other events, according to its website. Its Facebook page has not been updated since 2012.

Its second purchase was the New York Military Academy property in Cornwall-on-Hudson, which it acquired in 2015 for $15.8 million, the Westchester Business Journal reported. The 128-year-old school, whose roster of alumni and attendees includes President Donald Trump, sold the property at bankruptcy auction to the RCNC in 2015. It is still operating, according to its website.