Marmion Abbey selling part of site to housing developer

Marmion Abbey plans to sell a chunk of its longtime home in Aurora to a housing developer.

Roughly 21 acres on the east side of the abbey and Marmion Academy high school site would be sold to Pulte Homes, if the Aurora City Council approves a change in land use for the site and several variations from zoning requirements. The council is expected to vote on the matter at its next meeting.

“It doesn’t have a pertinence to our mission with our academy,” Abbot Joel Rippinger said Wednesday about the acreage. “It (the sale) was time.”

The Harvest Point subdivision would have 59 detached single-family houses in an area east of Raddant Road, between Sonoma Lane and Moorehead Drive.

The Benedictine Roman Catholic abbey and school have been on the 287-acre site since 1949 when it bought two farms in an unincorporated area and moved its boarding school out of Aurora. The majority of the site is west of Raddant. The city annexed it in 1995.

The land in question was used most recently to grow corn and soybeans.

Rippinger said the abbey has been working on the sale for three or four years.

Besides providing a financial benefit to the abbey and school, the development will help fill what he called a “pressing need” for new homes in the area, Rippinger said.

The abbey also plans to sell another 32 acres south of the site, according to Rippinger.

Besides the abbey and the high school, the campus also contains Abbey Farms. Christmas trees, pumpkins, apples and produce are grown and sold. Abbey Farms also has a venue that is rented out for events such as wedding receptions.

Pulte is seeking variations for the size of the homes’ lots, how much of each lot can be covered by a building and how far the buildings have to be set back from lot lines.

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250416/news/marmion-abbey-selling-part-of-site-to-housing-developer/