Just tripped over this

[Marcus D. Leech]

https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/shuttered-192-acre-north-carolina-nasa-campus-hits-market-for-30m/

PARI is for sale, it seems.   It's not clear whether a buy must continue
the STEM education mission or not....

But I think I left my $30M in the pants that went to the thrift store....

[Lamar Owen]

I was wondering when this would show up....

Our official response is on our website at www.pari.edu and is quoted below:

"Hello friends, visitors, partners, supporters, and fellow space explorers,

The staff here at PARI would like to address the news that has recently
been released that the grounds and buildings at PARI are listed for sale.

PARI is currently, and will remain, fully staffed and open for visitors,
STEM education, and outreach programming.

While the listing describes what a full sale of the facility would
entail, the option to purchase or lease only a portion of the site is
also available.  Any change in ownership of part or all of the site and
the conditions of that change must be approved by PARI’s board of
directors and the North Carolina State Attorney General. We are
confident that they have the preservation of PARI’s mission as their top
priority.

The site has served many purposes in the past, from a NASA ground
station, to Department of Defense facility, to its current role as a
center for learning and research.  Of the three, the site has been owned
by the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute since 1998, making our
STEM mission the longest the site has ever served.  The decision to
offer some or all of the property for sale was made to help give PARI
the flexibility and resources to continue this mission for decades to come.

This potential sale will not affect the existence of the 501(c)(3)
organization of the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI).  PARI
will continue to offer STEM education, outreach, and research
opportunities to learners of all ages.  PARI’s museum collections,
artifacts, archives, learning resources, and exhibits will continue to
be available to the public.  Though our physical footprint may change,
we will still be providing the engaging and exciting experiences you’ve
grown to expect from us.

We hope to see you at our upcoming open house event on Saturday,
November 1st and at other upcoming events.  View our calendar at
www.pari.edu/calendar to see what we have coming up, or
www.pari.edu/visit to learn about our other offerings."

And we had a wonderful and well-attended open house this past Saturday,
with 346 visitors.

[Marcus D. Leech]

Thanks for clearing that up, Lamar.

Our own facility (we're mere tenants) was also recently sold to a
private concern that we have some synergies with, and we've been
collaborating quite well.

[Jeff Kruth]

Well, how time has moved on! I was at the SARA meeting at NRAO-GB when Don Cline first approached the group and asked if we thought there would be any interest in this as a STEM center (maybe 1995?).He wanted to trade land with the Nat Park Service before they bulldozed the site. I was shocked, because I knew the place as Rosman Research Station from my dealings with several govt agencies and here it was up on the screen! After the fall of the the Soviets, national technical means switched venues, making it redundant. Later , my friend Charles Osborne went there from SA in Atlanta as chief engineer. A bunch of my microwave bits ended up there as well. Memories! Jeff Kruth

[Lamar Owen]

Jeff,

We still use some of those items from you that came through Charles;
thanks again for your generosity.

We're actually doing really well as far as operations go; both 26 meter
antennas have dual-band/dual-polarization S/X feeds and are
operational.  We've done a few paying telemetry return tracking missions
with an unnameable commercial client, and have filed an RFI response
with NASA for doppler tracking of Artemis II, requested by our contact
at NASA Marshall.

We are working with the Skynet people and received a subaward to bring
our 12 meter antenna into the Skynet network alongside the Greenbank 20
meter, and have performed servo upgrades and are in the midst of an RF
chain upgrade with new AMD RFSoC-based CASPER backend compatible with
Skynet.  All of these things keep me quite busy!

But long-term funding for the future is always a concern for a small
non-profit, and the way this sale has been described to me is to raise
funds for continued operations well into the future. Grants are great
for funding construction and refurbishment of instrumentation, but
grants don't typically want to fund recurring expenses like salaries and
utilities; while we do have site usage fees and recurring revenue there,
having a bit of a safety net with an endowment would go a long way.

On 11/4/25 14:03, 'Jeff Kruth' via Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers
wrote: