Dear Friend of Welch College,
Please be in prayer for our effort to sell our campus in the coming days. We have some exciting new developments on this front, and I wanted you to know about them so you could join me in prayer.
We announced in January that we had signed a contract with Forestar Group, a publicly traded real estate firm out of Austin, Texas, for the sale of our campus. We also mentioned that there were several hurdles they had to get over to make it feasible for them. One of those was being able to build four-story condominiums on West End Avenue, which would require a clarification in the height restriction to the property (some experts said it was three stories, others four).
Well, the neighborhood and city officials did not offer their support for four stories, and we learned this week that Forestar is unable to purchase the campus. Yet, as I’ll explain, we’re still hopeful for a campus sale this summer.
You may also remember that we hired a real estate developer to advise us in the process and help us master-plan the development of this property. His team recommended several strategic changes which, together with a burgeoning Nashville real estate market and the attention that a major firm like Forestar attracted, have created excitement and put a spotlight on our campus and what a unique property it is.
This has put us in the unprecedented position of having multiple buyers at this point with offers and letters of intent on my desk to purchase our campus. These LOIs have a price and timeframe very similar to that of Forestar, and the due diligence Forestar has already completed will help us maintain our schedule.
We’ve never been in this exciting position in the entire history of our attempt to sell our West End campus. Please pray for the campus sale in the coming days, that God would bring us the buyer He wants us to have so that we can build our new campus in Sumner County and continue the growth with which He has blessed us.
In Christ,
Matt Pinson
President