BishopAccountability.org
	Cardinal Stritch to Buy Cousins Center By Tom Heinen Milwaukee Journal Sentinel July 14, 2008 http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=7/14/2008&id=43140 Cardinal Stritch University has reached an agreement with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to buy the 415,000-square-foot Cousins Center and its approximately 44-acre site in St. Francis, university officials announced today. The purchase is part of an evolving master plan and would enable the university to expand beyond its largely land-locked main campus, which straddles Fox Point and Glendale. A sale price has been set but was not released, and more information needs to be gathered before a final sale agreement can be reached and completed, university officials said. The sale is contingent upon rezoning of the property by the City of St. Francis. Stritch's board of trustees and the administrative team for the Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, the university's sponsors, also will need to approve the purchase. "We are delighted to be moving forward with this purchase," Helen C. Sobehart, Stritch president, said in a statement. "Our presence on the south side would allow us to more effectively increase educational access for a broader and more diverse population, particularly the underserved. "And the purchase richly reflects the history of Stritch, which started in what is now Saint Francis in 1937 as Saint Clare College, and of the Sisters, who formed their congregation there in 1849 and whose Motherhouse remains there, just north of the Cousins site." The Cousins Center, a former preparatory seminary at 3501 S. Lake Drive, 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 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. Stritch describes itself as the largest Franciscan institution of higher education in the nation and the second-largest independent college in Wisconsin. Its mission, which has a "Franciscan focus on serving the underserved by transforming lives through value-centered education," can be achieved only with the opportunity to expand over time, officials said in the release. In addition to the main campus, Stritch has campuses in Edina, Minn., and Madison, which serve primarily working adults in its College of Business and Management and College of Education and Leadership. The Edina site also will soon offer classes through Stritch's Ruth S. Coleman College of Nursing. If the sale goes through, the Cousins site is expected to eventually serve primarily traditional-age undergraduate students, whose numbers the university is seeking to increase. Contact: theinen@journalsentinel.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.