Land that once housed a Catholic university is being returned to the Benedictine monks living on adjacent properties.
Oklahoma City-based retailer Hobby Lobby and the Green family purchased the 73-acre property that was home to St. Gregory University in Shawnee for $8 million in 2018 after the university declared bankruptcy.
In 2019, Hobby Lobby donated the land to Oklahoma Baptist University, whose campus is nearby. On Friday, OBU leaders announced that they had returned the land to the monks of St. Gregory’s Abbey in exchange for two other parcels of land in Shawnee owned by the Abbey.
Heath Thomas, president of the OBU, spoke about the decision to give the land to the monastic community during a brief press conference with Abbot Lawrence Stasyszen, held near the chapel of St. Gregory’s Abbey.
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After the land donation in 2019, OBU referred to the former St. Gregory property at 1900 W MacArthur as the OBU Green Campus, in honor of the Green family. St. Gregory’s Abbey and the Mabee-Gerrer Museum continued to occupy their adjacent properties because they functioned as separate entities from St. Gregory’s University.
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This article originally appeared in the Oklahoman: Oklahoma Baptist University to negotiate Shawnee land with St. Gregory Abbey
