Foreclosure Sale Claims a Building at Debt-Ridden Morris Brown College

Morris Brown College, which has been struggling to pay its bills, lost a classroom building to a foreclosure sale on Tuesday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The building, Jordan Hall, was sold for $900,000 to the same investors who financed construction of the $13.1-million building in 1996. Jordan Hall housed the historically black college’s hospitality programs and its art gallery, but since the college’s enrollment has dropped to about 200 students, the building’s loss will not leave programs cramped for space. The college still owes $12.2-million on the defaulted construction loan, the foreclosure notwithstanding.

The 127-year-old college, which lost its accreditation in 2002, has been scrambling to deal with what the acting president, Stanley J. Pritchett, referred to as “the strain of weekly financial crises.” The most critical has been a threat by the city of Atlanta to shut off water service to the campus because of unpaid water bills. The city has extended the deadline for payment several times, most recently to March 19, the Journal-Constitution reports.