determiner / pronoun
several
SEV-ruhl/ˈsevrəl/
More than two but not many.
Several pears rest on the table.

Etymology
From “separate,” several came to describe things assigned individually in legal use. That distributive sense developed into “more than one” and then a vague small number.
In context
this Academy is not an entire single building but a continuation of several houses on both sides of the street