The Vermont College of Fine Arts has reached a deal to sell three campus buildings to a local group for a health and wellness center and community space.
The college has reached an agreement with a group called 150 Main Street LLC to buy the Crowley Center, Martin House and Gary Library, according to Leslie Ward, president of the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
“The sale of our Crowley, Martin, and Gary Library buildings to 150 Main Street represents our broader efforts to thoughtfully identify buyers that share our commitment to continue enriching our campus and the broader community,” Ward said in an email to VTDigger. “After a comprehensive and careful review of potential buyers, we determined that 150 Main Street, a collective dedicated to wellness, education, and the performing arts, shares that commitment.”
Ward declined to share the purchase price until the sale is final.
The three adjacent buildings sit on the east side of College Street. According to the college’s website, Gary Library holds school archives and 60,000 books, while the Crowley Center has been used as a faculty guesthouse. Crowley and Martin House have also hosted alumni retreats.
“All proceeds from any sales will be used to support the future of the college including providing more scholarships, increasing program investments, and strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration between its programs and artists,” Ward said.
Last summer, the college announced plans to end on-campus programs and host some residencies at the campus of Colorado College, in Colorado Springs. Other residencies will take place virtually.
As part of that transformation, the college, which offers low-residency master’s degree programs in six disciplines, is considering selling or leasing nearly all of its 11 buildings. The administration will remain in the College Hall building.
The announcement about the Crowley, Martin and Gary Library buildings represents the first indication of future uses for the campus.
In a written description of 150 Main Street shared by Ward, the group describes itself as “a collective of practitioners, facilitators, designers, and creators who have been working together in shared and separate offices in downtown Montpelier, who are now unifying and expanding to create a vibrant and integrative community space.”
The new spaces will host professionals in the fields of “hydrotherapy, psychotherapy, massage therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, naturopathy, nutrition, and healthy food provision,” the group said in its description. 150 Main Street also hopes to create a space for exhibitions, performances, conferences and meetings.
“We’re excited to have a place where our community can connect to resources to support their full health and wellness,” the group said.
Casey Ellison, the principal of 150 Main Street, referred VTDigger to Ward’s comments and declined to comment further, saying she was traveling.
Ellison, a naturopath, bought 18 acres of land from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2019 with plans to build a community bathhouse, the Times-Argus reported at the time. Two years later, Seven Days reported, the project stalled amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The current status of that project — and its connection, if any, to the deal for the three Vermont College of Fine Arts buildings — is not clear.
The college’s planned transformation has sparked anger and sadness among faculty, alumni and students, who have submitted complaints to the New England Commission of Higher Education and the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.
Tom Greene, a founder and president emeritus of the Vermont College of Fine Arts who has criticized the college’s transformation, wrote on Facebook Monday that the campus is “being parceled off. Essentially, sold to the highest bidders.”
In the Facebook post, Greene highlighted the Crowley Center, which opened in 2016 as the college’s first new building in more than 30 years, according to a press release at the time, and named after Louise Crowley, a professor and administrator.
“When legacies are actively being erased, it’s important to make a bookmark sometimes,” he said.
