By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
An undisclosed “potential international partner” emerged as the finalist to acquire Rider University’s Westminster Choir College and keep the school in Princeton, the university said Thursday.
The announcement means the Princeton school district, which had made an offer for the property, lost out to acquire the campus for expansion needs in the face of growing enrollment.
In a statement, Rider said that its board of trustees on Thursday “selected as its finalist a potential international partner that has proposed to acquire Westminster Choir College and maintain the campus in Princeton.”
“This selection is the continuation of the process begun in March with formal outreach to approximately 280 entities through our adviser, PwC Corporate Finance LLC.,” the statement said. “After reviewing proposals over the last several weeks, the board will now begin negotiations and due diligence with the selected potential partner.”
Rider spokeswoman Kristine A. Brown said Thursday that the name of the potential partner would not be disclosed “to maintain the integrity of the continuing process and negotiations.”
“So we won’t identify who they are, and they won’t identify themselves,” she said.
There was no immediate timetable for when a deal could be finalized, with Rider having announced earlier this year it was selling Westminster.
“This is a complicated process, and the negotiations and due diligence will take some time” Brown said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know, at this point, how long that will take. We just don’t have enough information.”
Westminster will open for the academic year still as a part of Rider.
A group of Westminster alumni and others mobilized to fight the sale, having sued in federal court in a still pending case.
“And we’ll have to see who the buyer is and what the specific plans are,” said Bruce I. Afran, lawyer for The Coalition to Save Westminster Choir College in Princeton. “One question that will naturally arise is, if it’s a for-profit buyer, the deal has to be very carefully structured so the Westminster Choir College maintains its accredited status.”
As for the school district, Rider informed Superintendent of Schools Stephen C. Cochrane before the statement was released.
“We recognized from the outset of this process that Rider University’s ‘guiding principle’ in the selection of a buyer was to give preference to an organization that could maintain the Westminster Choir College as a premier institution of music education and performance in its present location,” he said. “We are happy for the Westminster staff and students that such a buyer has been found, and we look forward to working closely with our new neighbor. We are also grateful to the Rider trustees and leadership team for their careful consideration of the proposal we made for the Westminster property on behalf of the Princeton Public Schools.
Yet it comes with the district looking to do a facilities bond referendum to accommodate a rising enrollment projected to grow in the coming years, a subject Cochrane touched on.
“We do have options, other than the Westminster property, which we have been exploring to accommodate that growth,” he said. “We will move forward with our planning for a facilities referendum, and we look forward to working with the community to ensure our students have the space they need to learn, play, and thrive.”
For her part, Mayor Liz Lempert said Thursday that she is “thrilled to hear that Rider has found an institution that can keep the choir college in operation.”
“Westminster is a treasured part of the Princeton community,” she said, “and this is the best outcome.”
