Owner Now Giving Away Empty Vermont College Campus

In Vermont, one entrepreneur is trying to unload what might be the most unusual freebie in real estate: an entire former college campus. Raj Bhakta, a onetime Apprentice contestant and whiskey maker who scooped up Green Mountain College’s 115-acre Poultney campus at auction in 2020 for under $5 million, is now offering its 16 buildings and grounds to a new steward—for nothing, reports the Wall Street Journal. His ambitious plan to turn the shuttered school into a resort with hotel rooms, condos, a distillery, restaurant, and spa never made it past Vermont’s permitting maze or local tensions, and the site now hosts little more than a small elementary school started by his wife.

Bhakta says he’s sifting through more than 50 proposals and wants a group aligned with his vision of reviving “the United States, Western civilization and Christendom through faith-based education.” Donating the school to a religious organization poses another problem for Poultney, one local business owner tells WCAX: “There will be no property taxes ever paid, but the town will have to deal with the burden of having that large institution down there.” Whoever takes it on will need deep pockets: Bhakta’s website warns to expect about $1.5 million a year in upkeep and delayed maintenance. The stalled project mirrors a larger national question as small colleges close: What, if anything, comes next for the campuses that once anchored their towns? In Poultney, optimism about Bhakta has faded into wariness that anyone can realistically take the property on.