Youth camp plans fall apart for land near Square Lake in Washington County

A plan to build a Catholic youth camp in northern Washington County fell apart Monday after prompting vocal opposition from local residents, including at a special town board meeting held last week.

The public's "ongoing misinformation campaign" made it difficult to obtain local approvals, a spokesman for the Minnesota Catholic Youth Partnership said in a statement, adding that the group no longer planned to build its camp on a 600-acre parcel of land it wanted to buy from the St. Paul-based Wilder Foundation.

"This outcome is a shame — a true loss for the community, especially for those who want to see the Wilder property preserved and protected and, of course, for the kids," Tim Healy of the Catholic Youth Partnership, wrote in an email.

The Wilder Foundation announced one year ago that it had signed a letter of intent to sell to the partnership, part of an ongoing strategy to divest itself of properties no longer needed for its programs. Wilder has owned the parcel since 1957 but stopped operating programs there in 2003. The land, located near Square Lake, is known for its natural beauty including forests, pristine waters and rich wildlife habitat.

"I'm over-the-moon happy — and relieved — to share this extraordinarily wonderful news," Square Lake Conservancy co-founder Jim Seidl wrote in an email about the termination of the land deal. The group presented a petition with 400 signatures to the May Township Board, distributed some 200 lawn signs and raised $74,000 to help steer conversations about the future of the Wilder land.

The group's opposition rested primarily on fears that the camp would ruin the site's unspoiled character, which, when combined with nearby parcels set aside for conservation, helps form the 2,400-acre St. Croix Greenway Corridor. The Square Lake Conservancy said it would support the Wilder Foundation as it searched for another "conservation-centric" buyer. The 600-acre parcel includes an 80-acre education campus that hosted Camp Wilder from 1980 to 2003, Concordia Language Villages from 2005 to 2015 and, most recently, the River Grove K-5 charter school. It's also home to a 150-acre organic food farm.

The Wilder Foundation still plans to sell the land and has begun reaching out to parties who were interested in the land in the past, Wilder Vice President for Advancement Michelle Morehouse wrote in a statement Monday.

"If past parties do not express interest by Sept. 22, Wilder will initiate a process to engage with a real estate broker to facilitate a widespread marketing effort for the property," she wrote.

The land is zoned for conservancy by the May Township Board, and any future use would be required to meet the township's zoning requirements.