STATE COLLEGE — Pennsylvania lawmakers have quietly erased longstanding deed restrictions on seven closing Penn State campuses, allowing the university to sell the entire properties to private buyers rather than return portions of the land to state control.
Penn State is starting with two locations. Proposed real estate transactions for the Penn State Shenango campus in Mercer County and Penn State Wilkes-Barre campus in Luzerne County are slated for review by the Board of Trustees at its upcoming Sept. 18 meeting, university spokesperson Wyatt DuBois confirmed to Spotlight PA in an email.
“Removing the deed restrictions was a necessary step in bringing the proposed transactions for Penn State Shenango and Penn State Wilkes-Barre before the Board for consideration,” DuBois said.
The state-imposed deed restrictions were designed to protect taxpayers’ investment. Public funds helped build and maintain certain facilities, so the rules ensured that if Penn State ended its educational mission on the land, “title to the property shall immediately revert to … the Commonwealth.”
But because those restrictions applied to only portions of each campus, Penn State could not sell the properties as intact packages. As such, the university reached out to members of the legislature and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office to get the restrictions removed from the seven closing campuses, according to DuBois.
“The deed restrictions limited the transfer of pieces of the campuses and in some cases, just singular buildings, and therefore limited the ability of these campuses to be put back into productive community uses as soon as possible,” said Kate Flessner, communications director for state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R., Indiana), who sponsored the amendment to remove the restrictions.
The Board of Trustees in May 2025 voted to close seven commonwealth campuses — the DuBois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, and York campuses — due to budget constraints and declining enrollment.
Less than an acre — the library and multipurpose building — of the 54-acre Wilkes-Barre campus would’ve returned to the state. At the Shenango campus, the deed restrictions applied to roughly 4.5 acres of the 13-acre campus, tied to the science building and utility infrastructure, according to DuBois.
He said he could not share more details about the sales until the Board of Trustees’ finance committee considers them at its meeting on Sept. 17, which precedes the full board meeting on Sept. 18.
The statutory change removing the deed restrictions was an amendment to a broader real estate package that cleared the state Senate in a 46-4 vote on July 12 before returning to the state House, where it passed on concurrence in a narrow 105–97 vote.
The amendment drew sharp pushback from both sides of the aisle.
State Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa (R., Fayette) — whose district includes Penn State Fayette, one of the seven closing campuses — made an unsuccessful last-minute motion to send the bill back to committee, warning that lawmakers were voting blindly.
“I think that this issue has not been fully vetted,” Krupa argued on the floor. “I think that we’re putting our members in a terrible situation to have to vote on this without fully understanding the consequences … and the adverse negative impact on our rural communities where several branch campuses are slated to be closed.”
State Rep. Joe McAndrew (D., Allegheny) reminded colleagues during the session that some of the facilities at these campuses were built with public money under the promise that they would serve educational ends.
“Revoking this standard today revokes the leverage that we have,” McAndrew said, cautioning that stripping the deed restrictions gives the university the freedom to turn publicly funded land over to commercial interests. “You could build a data center. You could build whatever you want … Penn State, you could sell it to the highest bidder. That’s what we’re telling them with this vote today.”
Flessner, Pittman’s spokesperson, told Spotlight PA in an email that the statutory release was designed to facilitate Penn State’s full divestment from the properties.
She noted that the state Department of General Services, the Shapiro administration, Penn State officials, and leaders from the four legislative caucuses reviewed and vetted the language prior to its passage, with university government affairs representatives on hand throughout the process to address questions.
“This process … will allow us to move forward as we identify the best future use for each campus, in collaboration with local communities, economic development organizations and elected officials,” Penn State spokesperson DuBois said.
Some local officials, however, say they are still in the dark.
“Penn State has never communicated directly with Lehman Township about the proposed sale of the [Wilkes-Barre] campus, nor has the university shared information about any potential buyers,” Township Supervisor Douglas Ide told Spotlight PA in an email.
Ide noted that Penn State held a single communitywide meeting in 2025. But, he added, it was “apparent that Penn State was more interested in gathering information from the public than telling anyone what their plans were.”
In Sharon, home to Penn State Shenango, City Manager Robert Fiscus similarly said the university hasn’t told him about its immediate sales plans.
“At this point, I don’t want to speculate on potential buyers or specific property transactions until those plans are finalized,” Fiscus told Spotlight PA in an email. “Our focus is simple: turn a difficult decision into an opportunity for Sharon and make sure we are prepared to take advantage of whatever possibilities emerge.”
As a nonprofit institution, Penn State is exempt from local property taxes, though it maintains payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreements with Centre County and Erie County.
While converting the seven closing campus properties over to private commercial buyers could place the land onto local tax rolls, municipal leaders remain uncertain whether future uses will benefit host towns.
“We have no idea who’s looking at it, who they talked to, what their plans are — all we know is they’re closing it,” said David Sutton, assistant secretary to the Lehman Township supervisors.