USC Buys Hebrew Union College’s Skirball Campus in Los Angeles for $35M
The rabbinical training and higher education institute will retain a portion of the 50K-SF building as part of its deal with USC
By Nick Trombola February 27, 2025 7:30 pm
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Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC) isn’t just changing up its campus locations in New York City. It’s making moves in Southern California, too.
HUC, a rabbinical training and higher education institute of Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States, has reached a deal to sell its Jack H. Skirball Campus, a roughly 50,000-square-foot building at 3077 University Avenue in Los Angeles, to the University of Southern California (USC). USC paid $34.6 million for the property, Commercial Observer can first report.
The sale is part of a redevelopment agreement with USC. HUC will retain 30,000 square feet of the building, and renovate it with infrastructure, technology and natural lighting upgrades. HUC tapped Hagy Belzberg, founding partner of architecture firm BA Collective, to lead the renovation designs.
“USC has purchased the property north of USC’s campus from our partner, Hebrew Union College, to support our facility needs,” Brian K. Wilson, USC’s executive director for real estate development and leasing, said in a statement. “This change in ownership represents a reinvestment by both USC and HUC in the iconic property that will strengthen our partnership, which dates back more than 50 years.”
HUC, founded in 1875, has owned and occupied the Skirball campus — adjacent to USC’s L.A. campus — since 1954, and has operated as a partner of USC throughout that tenure. Indeed, in 2022 the academic partnership between the two institutions was renewed for another 25 years.
“We require different kinds of spaces to create vibrant laboratories for academic inquiry, spiritual exploration, and cultural creativity,” Andrew Rehfeld, president of Hebrew Union College, said in a statement. “Our physical spaces in Los Angeles and on all our campuses should be inviting and inspiring, encouraging experimentation with ideas and practice, and reflecting the significance, majesty and sacred purposes of our work.”
HUC’s sister campus on the East Coast has also experienced a major real estate shakeup in recent weeks. The institute earlier this month sold its New York City campus in Manhattan’s NoHo neighborhood to New York University for $75.5 million. It then purchased the First Battery Armory building in the borough’s Upper West Side from the American Broadcasting Company for $32 million, with plans to relocate there by 2027.
In Southern California, USC’s rival UCLA has also been making landmark expansion moves around the region in the past couple of years. That includes a $700 million deal for what was supposed to be a big office campus for Google that it is now transforming into a research park; paying $80 million for a 25-acre campus in Rancho Palos Verdes and an 11-acre residential site in San Pedro; paying $55 million for a 170,000-square-foot office in the South Bay, where it plans to spend roughly $90 million redeveloping into a sports health facility; and acquiring the the historic Trust Building in Downtown L.A. for less than $40 million
Nick Trombola can be reached at ntrombola@commercialobserver.com.
