Hobby Lobby Stores purchased the campus in 2009 from Northfield Mount Hermon.
The future of the former Northfield campus of Northfield Mount Hermon School is to be announced Friday.NORTHFIELD — Friday is the day Northfield residents have been waiting for to find out who will be taking over the former Northfield campus of Northfield Mount Hermon School.
The announcement will be made at a public meeting at Sage Chapel on the campus at 1 p.m.
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. purchased the campus in 2009 from Northfield Mount Hermon. It intends to transfer the property to a Christian educational institution that has the financial means to take over and maintain it.
Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby has selected two finalists for the 43-building campus: Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board and Grand Canyon University Foundation of Phoenix.
Grand Canyon University, a for-profit Christian school in Phoenix, would like to establish a second campus in Northfield with as many as 4,800 undergraduates. Some residents have expressed concern over such an influx of residents.
The North American Mission Board proposes using the campus for training missionaries and church planters and for retreats for pastors.
“Both fit the orthodoxy requirements, that is, traditional Christian beliefs and values,” said Dr. Jerry Pattengale, executive director of Green Scholars Initiative, representing Hobby Lobby. “This is not simply because of the Green (Hobby Lobby owners) family’s personal beliefs, but their desire--and many from around the world--to see the campus return to an organization in keeping with its founder’s beliefs and intentions. Many approached us with claims to be in D.L. Moody’s legacy, but only picked a very tangential aspect and seemed to add-on a Christian component. These two finalists are solidly within the Moody tradition.”
More than 100 institutions have shown an interest in the campus.
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. purchased the 217-acre Northfield campus for $100,000.
Evangelist Dwight L. Moody founded a Northfield school for girls in 1879 and the Mount Hermon school for boys in Gill in 1881. The schools merged in 1971 to form Northfield Mount Hermon; the Northfield campus was closed in 2005.
Since Hobby Lobby purchased the quintessential New England campus with its rolling green lawns and flowering trees, it has put more than $6 million into improvements and ongoing maintenance and will surpass $1 million in taxes.
The Sept. 21 open meeting at Sage Chapel will be followed by a “National Conversation” on “What is the Future of Christian Higher Education.”