Averett University has listed its 130-acre equestrian facility up for sale for $1.6 million.
The facility, located just across the state line from Danville in Providence, North Carolina, features stalls for up to 31 horses, four pastures and a riding arena, along with a mobile home for barn manager housing.
“We continue to explore all options for making Averett University financially stable, which includes selling the Equestrian Center,” Averett spokesperson Cassie Jones said Friday by email.
The private university has owned the property since 1990 and built the equestrian center there in 1993.
Jones did not respond to a question about whether the sale of the facility would impact Averett’s academic and athletic equestrian programs. She said the university is looking at lease-back options as well as opportunities to partner with other facilities.
Averett offers a Bachelor of Science in equestrian studies with five concentration options, along with an option to minor in equestrian studies. The school has eight faculty in the subject area.
In the region, Sweet Briar College, the University of Lynchburg, Emory & Henry University and Virginia Tech offer equestrian programs as majors or minors.
Enrollment in the equestrian studies program at Averett has recently seen a marked increase. From 2019-2020 through 2022-2023, only about a half-dozen students were enrolled in the program each fall; for 2023-2024, the fall headcount was 21, according to data from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
Overall, the university has about 1,450 students.
Averett’s athletic programs include a dressage team in the Intercollegiate Dressage Association and an Intercollegiate Horse Show Association team.
The property was listed in mid-March by Wilkins & Co. Realtors. Hampton Wilkins, president of the company, is on Averett’s board of trustees.
Averett has been cutting costs since financial mismanagement was discovered about a year ago. Early responses from the university included mandating summer furlough days for some full-time staff and reducing retirement benefits for employees.
Tiffany Franks, Averett’s president since 2008, retired in January. David Joyce immediately took over as president.
The university cut 15 full- and part-time positions in early March. “Along with attrition and the deletion of vacant positions, this reduction of workforce will decrease annual payroll expenses and better align university staffing with the size of the institution,” Jones said in a statement on March 7.
In that statement, Joyce called the staff cuts “the next step in addressing Averett’s budgetary challenges” and said that difficult cost-cutting decisions were “necessary to safeguard Averett’s future.”
