The long drama of Goddard College’s dissolution might have reached its final scene. On Thursday morning, a community group named the Greatwood Project announced that its bid for the Plainfield, Vt., campus had been accepted by the school’s board of trustees. 

The deal is worth $3.4 million, according to Kris Gruen, a founding member of the group, and heralds the possible end of a rocky, monthslong sale process. 

In early April, after years of financial difficulties, Goddard announced it was closing. In late May, the school’s trustees struck a deal to sell the campus to an unnamed buyer, setting off widespread criticism from Goddard’s students, alumni and faculty, and leading to a group filing for a temporary injunction to halt the sale. In early July, that deal fell through, and the trustees invited previously rejected buyers to once again bid for Goddard’s campus, name and trademarks. 

According to Gruen, the school accepted the community group’s bid in the last two weeks, and the two parties have signed a sale agreement. 

“We have a contract in place and we’re in a due diligence period now,” said Gruen, who is a Goddard alum. 

Kenneth Macur, the school’s interim chief financial officer, confirmed in an email that Goddard has “a fully executed Purchase and Sale Agreement with Greatwood Project.” 

The $3.4 million agreement matches the sale price in the first deal for Goddard’s campus. In its letter to previously rejected bidders, the college said that figure was the campus’ appraised value. 

In that same letter, the school also maintained that any potential buyer had to be able to pay the full purchase amount “at closing with no financing contingencies.” Back in late May, Lucinda Garthwaite, another one of Greatwood Project’s founding members, and a former Goddard academic dean, told VtDigger that she had been “10 days away from making a cash offer of about $3.5 million” when the first deal was announced. 

Nevertheless, Gruen said that currently “all options are still on the table as to how we approach final sale.” As to where the Greatwood Project was getting the money for the purchase, Gruen said that the group “is currently purchasing with funding derived solely from its founding board members.” 

In addition to Garthwaite and Gruen, the other founding members of the group are Celina Barton, Susan Benninghoff, Brian Benninghoff, Eileen Doohan, Christopher Pratt and Leesa Stewart, according to a press release from the organization. Stewart worked at Goddard for over five years, serving as the school’s chief financial and administrative officer until May 2023, according to her LinkedIn page. Pratt is a former member of Goddard’s board, according to his LinkedIn page.