SALON

Wednesday, Jan 2, 2013 11:30 PM UTC

Mass. campus given to group to find new owner

By

Topics: From the Wires,

BOSTON (AP) — The Oklahoma company that tried and failed to give away a former prep school campus in Massachusetts has donated the property to a Christian foundation, which will continue looking for a permanent owner.

The Hobby Lobby craft store chain, founded and owned by the Green family, on Wednesday announced the donation to the National Christian Foundation, effective Dec. 28.

The announcement came two months after the Greens’ extensive efforts to give away the 217-acre campus in Northfield for free suffered a huge setback when the recipient backed out. The company then turned to the Georgia-based foundation, which has handled donated property from the company previously.

“We had hoped to be able to find a qualified recipient of this property ourselves and made great efforts to do so,” said Les Miller, Hobby Lobby’s real estate analyst. “When we were unable, we decided to enlist the help of NCF. … We are confident they will be able to find a long-term owner for this property.”

But the new owner may not get the campus for free. Aimee Minnich, president of the foundation’s Heartland office in Kansas, said the best use of the campus “may include donation, sale, or some combination of those two.”

The foundation’s standards for an owner also aren’t yet as explicit as was with the Greens, who were seeking to find one owner with orthodox Christian beliefs who was committed to honoring the legacy of the prep school’s founder, 19th century evangelist D.L. Moody. Minnich said Wednesday that the foundation is looking “for an end user that fits the history and culture of this beautiful campus.”

Northfield Town Administrator Tom Hutcheson said the community is eager to welcome a new owner at the campus, which has been vacant since 2005, when the Northfield Mount Hermon prep school moved out to shed costs and consolidate at a nearby campus.

“It’s been vacant for quite a while, too long, really, for the town to be comfortable,” Hutcheson said. “I think that there aren’t many people who would object to some group which fitted the campus coming in.”

The Greens bought the campus in 2009 intending to give it to a new college named after Christian apologist and writer C.S. Lewis. When that venture stalled in December 2011 because of fundraising woes, the Greens decided to give the campus away.

The offer drew numerous groups for tours of the rolling campus near the New Hampshire and Vermont border. Grand Canyon University was selected in September, and planned a $150 million investment that would bring 5,000 students to the town of about 3,000. But the Arizona school backed out weeks later, citing tens of millions in unanticipated building and infrastructure costs.

The Greens spent $5 million to upgrade the campus, but any new tenant would face expenses including the kinds of possible upgrades that spooked Grand Canyon and $1 million in annual utility bills.

During the Green’s search, Northfield residents of liberal Massachusetts voiced concerns about prospective owners for various reasons, including their conservative Christianity and — in Grand Canyon’s case — a large influx of residents to the small town. But other residents are desperate for a new tenant and the new life and commerce it can bring.

Hutcheson said he knows nothing about the National Christian Foundation, though Minnich said the group has planned a trip next week to meet residents. Hutcheson said robust communication among the foundation, interested owners and the town’s decision-makers would help the new relationship.

“That was one thing that we didn’t have last time. People were interested in the campus as a campus and, as we saw, were not entirely well informed as to the community into which they would be moving,” he said. “A dialogue would be useful.”

More By Jay Lindsay.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations