The proposed sale of the St. John’s Oakdale campus to the Joint Industry Board of the Electrical Industry will not go forward as planned, it was announced on Aug. 9 in a press release on the St. John’s Web site.

The board, also known as JIB, which had originally intended to use the property for seminars for its members and summer camps for their children, pulled out of the deal because of concerns over the price of proposed renovations to the complex.

When the agreement in principal for JIB to make the purchase was made in March, Vito Mundo, the general council for JIB, had said that the organization planned to make renovations to several of the buildings and use them primarily for educational purposes.

“We think [the Oakdale property] will suit our needs very nicely,” Mundo said at the time.

There was also an agreement in which St. John’s would be allowed to continue using the campus for graduate programs for 10 years following the sale.

The 175-acre campus, which is located on the south shore of Long Island near the Great South Bay, will continue to house the University’s graduate course offerings in library and informational science, criminal justice leadership, school psychology, and educational administration and supervision.

Before St. John’s purchased the campus in 1999, it was the home of the LaSalle Center, a K-12 school and military center.

The school at LaSalle was officially closed in 2001. The University has expressed that although this sale did not go through, it will continue to be open to any other parties interested in purchasing the site.