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NMH expands search for offers for campus

By JANET BOND, Recorder Staff

NORTHFIELD — Almost one year into its marketing efforts, the Northfield campus of Northfield Mount Hermon School has had 80 inquiries.

Maybe a handful have been serious, but none have led to offers.

Carol Lebo, the NMH transition coordinator, met with the town’s NMH Transition Committee to update the committee on the school’s efforts to find a purchaser for the Northfield campus.

Lebo told the committee that a May release of a campus brochure to 2,000 educational institutions in the Northeast has been followed with a second mailing of 1,000 brochures to the rest of the country, this time focusing on independent school organizations, state superintendents of schools and to deans of colleges or universities that have education departments.

Lebo said all the interests have been from the nonprofit sector, but were not limited to education institutions.

The NMH board of trustees is not releasing what dollar amount it is asking for the campus, but Lebo said the assessed valuation by the town is about $35 million and the replacement value of the campus is $150 million.

The Northfield campus consists of 30 buildings on about 300 acres of land, according to the marketing brochure created by LandVest, with whom the property is listed.

The entire holdings of NMH in Northfield — 2,028 acres — include significant areas of open space, some of which the town has expressed a direct interest in and great concern about.

Lebo’s response to the town’s interest was both good and bad news for the town: “(The trustees) can’t think about outlying properties at this point. They can’t think about it.”

The NMH Stewardship Committee, made up of trustees who are directly involved in the reuse of the Northfield campus, is aware of the town’s interest in the Mill Brook area and the acreage directly across the campus, fronting on Routes 10 and 63. Lebo said they are also aware of interest on the part of the town and Mount Grace Land Trust in acreage the school owns near Brush Mountain.

As far as real estate, Lebo said the trustees may agree to sell faculty houses in Northfield once the houses have been built on the Mount Hermon campus in Gill for Northfield-based faculty, but she emphasized that was a good five years down the road.

The NMH board of trustees decided two years ago to consolidate the school onto one campus and chose the Mount Hermon campus in Gill for the school.

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