Local Tucson developer Ross Rulney has just purchased the Benedictine Monastery between East Speedway and East 5th Street from the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, AZ Daily Star is reporting.

The sale of the property will be finalized March 1 and mark the relocation of the remaining sisters as they move to a different congregation out of state. Though the decision was bittersweet for the nuns, they are holding the developer to high standards and hope any additional housing to the property will respect “the monastery’s historic character,” Sister Joan Ridley told the Star.

Rulney has relayed the same sentiments. Without revealing specifics for what he had in mind, the developer did reveal in an email that he envisioned a “development on the property consisting of a housing component that will complement the adaptive reuse of the existing building.”

The seven-acre property in East Tucson and across the historic Sam Hughes neighborhood has a lot of possibilities. Among his other developments, and perhaps a signal of what’s to come is the Julian Drew Block in Downtown Tucson. For that project, Rulney converted and combined the 1960s Tiburon Apartments, western neoclassical Julian Drew Building, and an old carriage house into the modern condos now known as The Flats at Julian Drew Block. The project helped to reshape the block and provide urban living options in the heart of the historic art district.