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	Cardinal Stritch Looks into Cousins Center Archdiocese Facility up for Sale Might Meet School's Needs By Tom Heinen Milwaukee Journal Sentinel March 4, 2008 http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=724769 Cardinal Stritch University officials have toured the Cousins Center in St. Francis and are evaluating whether to make an offer to buy the 415,000-square-foot building and its approximately 44-acre site from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Mike Brauer, Stritch vice president for advancement, confirmed Tuesday that Sister Mary Lea Schneider, the university's president, on Friday signed a non-binding letter of intent to discuss a possible purchase of the property with Colliers Barry commercial real estate brokerage. "We are very early in the process," Brauer said. "We've just barely begun to talk about it on campus. Our board has not at this point had a conversation of any substance among itself because it's very preliminary." The Cousins Center, a former preparatory seminary, has housed archdiocesan offices for years. The archdiocese has been trying to sell it, partly to pay off a $4.6 million loan that helped pay its $8.25 million portion of a nearly $17 million settlement of 10 sexual abuse lawsuits in California in 2006. An anticipated sale to an area corporation fell through earlier this year, leaving the archdiocese, which has said it is financially strapped, with monthly payments of about $30,000 on the loan, plus the expense of maintaining the property and moving some of its offices to other facilities. About two weeks ago, as faculty and staff at Stritch were discussing how to implement the university's year-old strategic plan, someone asked if the Cousins Center had been considered, Brauer said. It hadn't, so Brauer and board chairman Thomas Zabjek toured the facility Feb. 19. Stritch administrators and a different board member then did a follow-up visit. "Some things have moved forward," Brauer said in a telephone interview from Florida, where he and Schneider were meeting with alumni and supporters Tuesday. "We've determined that there's reason to continue the talk. Had we gone on the tour and determined that what was there would never possibly meet the kind of needs that we knew we had, I'm sure the conversation would have stopped right there." The university, whose main campus straddles Glendale and Fox Point, has been working with the Kahler Slater/Performa Higher Education consulting firm to determine how well its present and future needs for space can be met by its existing campuses. In addition to the campus here, it operates a campus in Edina, Minn., and rents or leases sites in Madison and other parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The satellite operations offer business and education classes. Slightly fewer than 2,000 traditional-age undergraduate students are on the Fox Point-Glendale campus daily, including many commuter students, said Linda Steiner, Stritch vice president for public relations.
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