AMHERST - A few days before Amherst College shelved a $20 million renovation of the Lord Jeffery Inn, it bought a downtown building - assessed at $1 million - for $2.3 million.

The building at 79 South Pleasant St. is directly across the town common from the inn and just south of Collective Copies. It was the First Baptist Church from 1835 to 1963, and from 2001 until May it was the site of the Fiber Arts Center.

The building provides office space for three psychotherapists, three psychologists, two neuropsychologists, an attorney and other professionals. These tenants have been notified that they will have to move out in phases starting next summer, said Caroline Jenkins Hanna, a college spokeswoman.

The college plans to refurbish the building, but there is no estimate of the cost, she said. It will ultimately be used for offices for college employees, she said.

"This was driven by the need to enhance spaces on campus," she said. "We have a space crunch on campus."

The college's development office, currently in offices on the corner of Main and North Pleasant streets, is also planning to move next summer, she said. But it will move to three college-owned buildings on Hitchcock, South Pleasant and Snell streets, not to the recently acquired building, she said.

It is not clear which college employees will move their offices to 79 South Pleasant St., she said.

The date of the transaction was Oct. 20, and the sellers were Perry Thompson and Anne Hastings. According to assessors' records, the building has a gross area of 19,139 square feet and is valued at $1,016,800.

#A little bit surprised'

Principal Assessor David Burgess said he was "a little bit surprised" by the $2.3 million sale price, but noted that downtown locations have enhanced property values, and this building has the advantage of proximity to the college. The transaction will not have an immediate impact on downtown commercial assessments, but could in the future, he said.

The building will bring in $16,289 in tax revenue this year. For now, it will continue to be taxable property even though it is owned by an educational institution, but when it is used as offices for college employees it will then be tax-exempt, Burgess said.

"I'm not very happy," said Ruth Katzner, one of the psychotherapists who will have to find a new office space. "Four of us have been here a long time, and our expectation was to retire here. It was a blow."

Katherine Pfister, a psychotherapist who has had an office in the building for more than 30 years, said the move could be unsettling for clients.

"For people who have had a difficult life history, stability is meaningful," she said. "Having an emotionally safe and physically consistent space is important to development of a relationship of trust with a therapist, especially in longer-term therapy."

Katzner and Pfister said they would like to find other offices in downtown Amherst, because many of their clients come from Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts.

There is very little space available downtown that has adequate free parking, as their current building has, they said.

The other tenants include: psychotherapist Renee Spring, psychologists John Lambdin, David Levit and Alan Kanner, neuropsychologists Bradley Crenshaw and Timothy Whelan, attorney Michael Shea Bulman, Dr. Kim Gaitskill and Living Routes: Study Abroad in Ecovillages.