The former Judson College campus is under contract, according to multiple sources, but the buyer and intended use have not yet been made public. As of Tuesday night, Nov. 11, the public listing for 302 Bibb Street remained active on LoopNet, a commercial real estate listing platform, at an asking price of $8,000,000 for roughly 362,170 square feet of buildings on about 150 acres. The listing page showed recent activity as of Oct. 31.
Rumors have centered on a pharmaceutical distributor said to be buying the campus, relocating a facility to Marion, and even housing incoming employees on-site. None of that has been confirmed. People familiar with the situation say the intention for the property is as a training or education facility, perhaps tied to the region’s existing drug-distribution footprint and possibly related to new distribution centers recently developed elsewhere in the state.
County mapping on Tuesday still showed the Judson College Foundation as owner of the core campus parcels, which is not unusual while a sale moves through contingencies and until a deed is recorded. Separately, the Perry County Probate Office’s computer system remains offline, a situation officials say could last months. Deeds are still recorded in person, but the outage delays public access to scanned images and index updates. In practical terms, that means the first hard proof for the public may be the probate office’s paper daybook or a broker status change before anything official appears online.
Judson’s Board of Trustees voted on May 6, 2021, to close the 183-year-old college and move through the process of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, giving the campus to the Judson College Foundation in the process. Foundation leaders stepped in to maintain and market the physical campus. Public materials in 2023 identified alumna Joan Newman as president of the Judson College Foundation.
Perry County Commission Chairman Albert Turner Jr. posted Sunday that commissioners would take up “reorganization of the Economic Development Board… given the non-functional status of the Perry County Airport Board,” and said both he and Marion Mayor Dexter Hinton “have been involved in recruiting a business to locate on the Judson College property.”
Turner also floated creating a countywide recreation board and “activating an industrial board controlled by all three entities,” framing those steps as part of the same recruitment push.
On Tuesday, Donald Bennett, who has announced a 2026 run against Turner for the Perry County Commission District 1 seat and who serves as chairman of the Perry County Airport & Industrial Authority as well as being active with Main Street Marion, issued a statement pushing back against Turner’s claim that the airport board was nonfunctional. Bennett applauded efforts “to recruit business to the former Judson College property,” but said economic development “requires partnership,” adding that “all participants in this recruitment effort should be acknowledged and [their] roles of engagement” explained, including groups “like Main Street Marion and the Airport and Industrial Authority.”
Neither Turner nor Bennett have named the company involved or described the project’s intended use.
A second rumor now circulating is that the prospective buyer has also expressed interest in Vaiden Field, the county airport, which was recently shut down by the Alabama Department of Transportation’s Aeronautics Bureau following a September inspection and an Oct. 20 suspension notice. Any use at Vaiden would likely first require restoring the airport’s license through the Airport & Industrial Authority, ALDOT, and the FAA. Even then, public ownership and grant-assurance rules could make a long-term lease or operating agreement more likely than a sale of that facility. No formal deal is said to be in place regarding Vaiden at this time.
One individual familiar with the situation confirmed a signed contract on the campus but emphasized the deal is not yet done.
Another source repeated a claim of “state approval” of the sale, but no state officials had publicly announced any sort of approval as of press time, nor is it clear what approval might be required for a sale between two private entities.
