Waverly Heights agrees to buy 43 acres from The Haverford School, plans second life care campus in Bryn Mawr

In 2022, The Haverford School called it a “generational opportunity.” Now it’s moving on.

When the boys’ school bought the former Presbyterian Children’s Village/Gemma Services property on Roberts Road in Bryn Mawr, the vision was expansion — playing fields, maybe new academic buildings, a satellite campus less than three miles from its landlocked Lancaster Avenue home.

A 43-acre parcel on the Lower Main Line doesn’t come up often. Haverford grabbed it, paying nearly $20 million to keep its options open.

Four years later, those options have closed. Haverford is selling the land to nonprofit senior living provider Waverly Heights for an undisclosed price.

The about-face followed Haverford’s two-year comprehensive planning process — and a simple conclusion: bigger isn’t better.

“We’re realizing that the tightness of the campus is actually a strength. We may be able to redistribute things within our current campus to meet our goals,” Head of School Tyler Casertano said in March.

So the tract that served at-risk young people for decades is slated to serve seniors.

Waverly Heights wants to build 225 new “life care” residences across more than 20 buildings — presumably providing the same continuum of care it offers at its Gladwyne campus: from independent living in duplex “villas” and personal care apartments to memory support and skilled nursing units.

Although substantial, the Bryn Mawr campus would be about 70 percent smaller than Waverly’s 63-acre Gladwyne flagship.

Senior living is a permitted use on the site, zoned “planned institutional.” But the plan still needs waivers and variances, including one key ask: permission to build three stories high.

First stop: Monday night’s Radnor Planning Commission meeting, where the proposal gets its first public airing.