Unity Environmental University has donated one of the buildings on its original campus in Unity to a local charter school known as the Ecology Learning Center.
The decision comes as the university is attempting to sell most of its Unity campus after making a few big changes during the COVID pandemic, including moving its headquarters to a campus in the southern Maine town of New Gloucester and shifting to a hybrid model with many classes offered remotely.
The Unity campus is still in use, with about 50 students out of the 7,500 enrolled in the university taking classes there, said Joseph Hegarty, a university spokesperson.
The building that’s being donated houses the Unity Center of the Arts and is valued at nearly $1 million, according to the university. However, it was never included in the portion of the campus that went up for sale last summer, said university President Melik Peter Khoury.
The university had originally considered leasing the building to the charter school, but decided to donate it because the university has been doing well financially, according to Khoury.
“It just kind of made sense for us to be in the position that we are, to say, ‘Instead of leasing it to you or renting it to you, why don’t we just give it to you, and then you get to breathe some life into it,’” Khoury said.
Since the charter school won’t be leasing the building, the university will have no “residual interest” in it and the charter school can do what it wants with the space, Khoury said. The Ecology Learning Center, a charter school that receives public funding, plans to incorporate the building into its school and use it for community programming.
A representative for the charter school didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The rest of the university campus is likely to remain for sale, but Khoury said he can’t make predictions about its future.
“I think for me, every opportunity is an independent one based on the right person and the right group and the right community,” Khoury said.