The Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts has purchased its Gatlinburg campus, finalizing a real estate deal that was years in the making.
The school announced the acquisition in a news release on Thursday, saying it paid $8 million to buy the property from the Pi Beta Phi fraternity for women.
“Owning our campus allows Arrowmont to continue to enrich the lives of the artists and people of our community for generations to come,” Geoffrey Wolpert, president of Arrowmont’s Board, said in the release. “Gatlinburg, Pi Beta Phi and Arrowmont share an intertwined history, and that history gives this institution a momentum that will allow it to shape a future that is vital and important to the growing international community that benefits from what happens on this campus.”
In January, the Gatlinburg school announced the deal to buy its 13-acre campus on the Parkway, but said it had to raise $2 million before the deal closed.
The news release said Arrowmont had raised nearly the entire $8 million purchase price over the last year, but a spokesman said in an email that gap financing was also used in the deal.
The future of Arrowmont has been in flux since 2008, when Pi Beta Phi announced plans to sell the property.
That sale fell through and in 2010 the Arrowmont board announced that the school would remain at its campus on the Gatlinburg Parkway and an effort would be made to buy the property.
The initial negotiations were unsuccessful, but the school announced the latest deal in January.
Comments are closed.