Nyack College plans to sell its Rockland County campus and shift all programs to its Manhattan-based campus as of next fall, school officials confirmed Wednesday morning.

Seeking to minimize rising costs, the private four-year Christian college has filed an application with the state Department of Education to operate solely from its Lower Manhattan location on Washington Street.

It's unknown what will come of the campus, which the college plans to put on the market. The sprawling 107-acre property includes dormitories, classrooms, athletic facilities and performing arts buildings. There are also plans to move the college-affiliated Alliance Theological Seminary, now located off Route 9W in Upper Nyack, to New York City.

Faculty learned of the plans on Tuesday evening, while students were informed Wednesday morning during a meeting.

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While students said there were rumors of a sale swirling around over the last semester and that they weren’t surprised by the announcement, local officials were taken aback by the plans to sell the campus, which is spread across three municipalities.

Orangetown town Supervisor Chris Day said the pending sale “was kept completely” from the leadership in all three municipalities and they only learned of it Wednesday morning.

After that, Day said he met with Nyack Mayor Don Hammond and South Nyack Mayor Bonnie Christian and they’re “beginning a major ‘all hands on deck’ focus to help ensure that the sale of this campus becomes a positive for all of us and not a negative.”

The college did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Day's statement.

Jeff Quinn, Nyack’s vice president of college relations, said that, prior to putting the property on the market, the school will work with real estate consultants to talk about its options.

Day said any major development on the Nyack College property would require a rezoning, based on current zoning maps in the villages and town.

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Right now, Quinn said, college officials are focused on working to make the transition as smooth as possible for the 600 students at the local campus.

Students will be able to finish their majors at the Manhattan campus or complete coursework online, according to the school. The school is also finalizing an agreement to provide housing in Jersey City, New Jersey, for its 400 students who currently reside in the Rockland campus dormitories and working to secure NCAA-approved fields and facilities for its athletics programs.

“Nyack College is undergoing one of the most exciting changes in all of its history," college President Mike Scales said in a statement. "We have applied to the state of New York to offer all programs — academic, co-curricular, athletic — as well as operations — on our Manhattan campus. Repositioning campuses to be based in one major, urban area will reposition Nyack as a truly unique Christian college.”

Scales pointed out it’s a homecoming for the school, which was founded in New York City more than 130 years ago. The school didn’t expand to Rockland until 15 years after it opened and didn’t become known as Nyack College until the 1970s.

Going forward, there are no plans to change the school’s name, Quinn said.

"There's a rich history here. You'll find that the name Nyack is known worldwide because of our school's rich history and tradition," he said.

Nyack College is affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical denomination with about 2,000 churches.

In response to growing enrollment, the college re-established a New York City presence in 1997. By 2013, it doubled the size of that campus and moved some of its graduate programs there.

"We want to capitalize on the momentum we have in New York City and consolidate all programs in our state-of-the-art facility by Battery Park," Quinn said.

Nyack College has earned a reputation for having among the most diverse student bodies and faculties in the country. The school also boasts a variety of outreach initiatives, such as its Global Service Learning program, which allows students to study and volunteer in places such as Israel, India and Costa Rica.

About 2,400 students are enrolled across the college’s three campuses: Manhattan, Nyack and San Juan. At the height of its enrollment, Quinn said there were about 3,400 students.

In recent years, a number of small religious colleges have closed due to enrollment declines, rising operating costs and competition from larger public schools.

"Like a lot of schools, we've had our fair share of challenges," Quinn said. "We are repositioning in New York City because we believe this is what permits us to fulfill our mission. We are perpetually looking for ways to keep our costs low and our standards high. Our desire and mission drives us to want to serve students of all socioeconomic backgrounds and be accessible for all. We don't want to pass along any unnecessary costs to students."

Students on campus Wednesday said they believe the majority of their classmates will move to the Manhattan location.

Samathan Aupperlee, 21, has lived at the school for the last four years during her undergraduate studies and will pursue a master's degree next year.

"It's a good move for me personally because the atmosphere of the city and the things that come with city life — the people you meet and the opportunities — are greater than what's surrounding here," Aupperlee said. "I do think it'll shift people's perspectives, though because it may not be what they expected. For some people, city life isn't what they need and they may want a smaller area like the Rockland campus."

For some commuter students, getting to class will actually be easier. Celeste Gonzalez, who lives in North Bergen, New Jersey, said she's looking forward to having a much quicker trip next year when she begins pursuing her master's.

Quinn did not have an estimate for how much money closing the campus will save the college, which has an annual operating budget of about $50 million, nor how it will affect staffing levels. There are 140 full-time employees on campus and officials have already trimmed that number in response to "enrollment struggles" in recent years, Quinn said.

According to an independent audit, Nyack College's financials were concerning to the U.S. Department of Education, which notified officials in July 2016 that it was “not considered financially responsible” and there was “doubt about the college’s ability to continue as going.”

In the same report, the auditors noted that the college “has faced numerous financial and operating difficulties in recent years, including: declining student enrollments, negative cash flows from operating activities, recurring decreases in unrestricted net assets, and failure of debt covenants and inability to pay debt, if called.”

In response, the college took a few steps, such as partnering with non-for-profit organizations to share space in its New York campus for revenue, borrowing from its endowment fund and developing a plan to sell “non-essential real estate owned by the college.” The school also trimmed operating expenses, including an elimination of some employee benefits.

Nyack College's departure will leave Rockland with four colleges: Dominican College, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Rockland Community College and Columbia University’s Lamont Observatory.

Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, a Nyack village trustee, called the college's departure “deeply upsetting.”

“Whatever your feelings about the college’s position on some social issues, it has been a key part of our community for decades. The campus provides jobs to many people in our area, and the students and faculty spend thousands of dollars every year at local businesses,” he wrote in a social-media post.

Reichlin-Melnick said he’s “very concerned about the future use of the college’s campus” and urges the college “to sell their property only to an organization or organizations that will be a good fit” for the community.