A federal judge on Wednesday approved a Buffalo developer’s winning bid of $200,000 to buy a former Catholic high school property in Olean that’s owned by the bankrupt Buffalo Diocese.
Olean 2020, a limited liability corporation owned by developer Carl Paladino, outbid three other bidders at an auction Tuesday for the former Archbishop Walsh Academy buildings and grounds.
Proceeds from the sale will likely be used toward a negotiated settlement with more than 850 child sex abuse claimants in the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
The two-story, 55,000-square-foot building is the first of what could be many properties to get sold by the diocese, which has pledged to pay at least $100 million to abuse claimants.
The diocese owns 37 properties across six counties and this past June sought new appraisals on the value of those parcels, which include its Catholic Center on Main Street, five other school complexes, two priest retirement homes and a former seminary campus in the Town of Aurora that’s currently on the market for $5.3 million.
The independent Walsh Academy had tried as far back as December 2019 to buy the buildings and grounds from the diocese. But after the diocese filed for federal bankruptcy protection, any such sale had to get court approval.
Proposed sales for $150,000 – and later $300,000 – that would have allowed Archbishop Walsh to stay in the building crumbled under concerns that they were inside deals between the diocese and an interested party.
Amid the uncertainty, Walsh high school and a Catholic elementary school at the property relocated to a former parochial school at St. John the Evangelist Church in Olean.
Ultimately, the bankruptcy court in September approved a stalking horse bid process, after Walsh Huskies LLC, a real estate development company, signed a purchase agreement with the diocese for $50,000 and agreed to be the stalking horse bidder.
Walsh Huskies ended up being outbid by…
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