Boston College agreed Monday to purchase the 43 acres of the Boston Archdiocese’s Brighton headquarters for $99.4 million, a sum that Church officials say will go toward paying off the $90 million loan taken out to settle the recent slew of clergy sexual abuse lawsuits.

Archbishop Sean O’Malley said the deal between the Catholic Church and the Catholic university marked the end of a painful chapter in the history of the archdiocese.

“While I am saddened that a large piece of our Brighton campus had to be sold to this end, I am pleased that the offer by Boston College was the one that we accepted at the end of the sale process,” O’Malley said in a statement Tuesday. “It is good that we have been able to keep the property within the Catholic family.”

The Brighton property, which has housed high-ranking Catholic officials for the past 75 years, borders the BC campus, and college spokesman Jack Dunn said the acquisition provides the school with much-needed room to grow.

“It is truly an historic and transformational period in the 145-year history of Boston College,” he said. “It is a win-win for BC and the archdiocese and the neighborhood, of which we have been a part of for so many years.”

While BC has no immediate plans to develop the land, the college will use the plot for parking, office space and intramural sports, Dunn said.

“For right now, we just want our students to have this beautiful open space,” he said.

Dunn said the terms of the agreement include the future sale of an additional 3.25 acres for $8 million dollars and an assurance that BC will have the right to purchase any Brighton land the Church puts on the market in the future.

Currently the deal is only an “agreement in principle” because the archdiocese must receive approval from the Vatican before the deal is finalized. BC has until June 30 to deliver the money – a relatively short period for realty transactions, but a major selling point for the Church to choose BC, according to Dunn.

“I am pleased that we were able to come to an agreement in this matter so quickly,” O’Malley said in the statement.

Brighton Neighborhood Coordinator Paul Holloway said he approves of the agreement and noted that the sale turns an unfortunate situation for the archdiocese into a beneficial situation for both parties.

“When you are given lemons, you try to make lemonade,” he said. “The archdiocese had a need for cash to pay off a sizable loan from the abuse cases and Boston College also had a need – they were land-locked and really needed some room to grow.”

While Holloway said he hoped the deal would “free up some space on [BC’s] current campus,” he explained that any move by the college to develop the land will be met with an extensive community approval process.

Dunn said the university may develop the land in the future, but added that putting those decisions in the hands of a university is better for the neighborhood than leaving it to a company only interested in profits.

“The land could have gone to luxury housing or a high-rise condo development and threaten to change the long-standing character of the neighborhood,” he said.

Although both the Church and the university said the terms of the deal were favorable, Sime Kloupte, an agent for Bretton Realty – which deals primarily in Boston and Brookline apartments – called the price “outrageous” and suggested that BC purposefully paid more to get the Church out of its financial bind.

“You don’t buy just for fun, unless you are Bill Gates and drop 90 million,” she said. “They must either have big plans to develop or want to help the seller out.”

Holloway said there is most likely no way to truly judge the land because it was religious property and therefore not subject to government assessment.

Suzanne Morse, spokeswoman for the Catholic reform group Voice of the Faithful, said she was happy that a “Catholic institute” bought the land but added that the deal brought further attention to the recent abuse cases.

“This once again reminds us of the tremendous cost of the clergy sex abuse crisis,” she said. “It ripples into history and ripples into the archdiocese – something that they are not easy to dismiss.”