Marlboro Music buys former college campus where it resides

MARLBORO, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont music venue, Marlboro Music, has bought the college campus where it resides after 70 years without claim to the property.

The president and chair of Marlboro Music, Christopher Serkin, said Tuesday that the purchase of the former Marlboro College was in its last stages.

According to documents submitted to the town, Marlboro Music subsidiary Potash Hill paid $2.7 million to the college's owner, Democracy Builders Fund 1, The Brattleboro Reformer reported.

Serkin said Marlboro Music will continue its use of the campus for three months in the summer. It will also develop a process to determine the use of the now-empty college campus for the rest of the year.

Before its closure, Marlboro College struggled to keep its doors open as enrollment dwindled and revenues dropped, the newspaper reported.

In 2019, Marlboro College merged with Emerson College and closed its main campus.

The following year, Marlboro College sold the campus to Democracy Builders for $1.7 million, far below the property’s value.

Democracy Builders was potentially to open a charter school on the campus in fall 2021 until one of its owners was arrested in April on suspicion of stealing money from another charter school.

Alice Jazel-Smith, chair of Democracy Builders, said she trusts the campus is in good hands with the Marlboro Music Festival.