The 199-year-old Cazenovia College campus has a new owner. On December 18, 2025, a local investor group operating as 9Fresh, founded by Kate Brodock and led with Hardeep Bindra and a third general partner, closed on the entire 240-plus acre campus for $9.5 million, then immediately resold portions to Madison County for approximately $1.9 million and to the Town of Cazenovia for $1,050,000. The deal ended nearly two years of uncertainty after the college, founded in 1824 as the Seminary of the Genesee Conference, defaulted on a $25 million bond payment in September 2022 and graduated its final class on May 13, 2023. Village Mayor Kurt Wheeler said the community owes “a debt of gratitude to Kate Brodock and Adam O’Neill for their determination, creativity, and unrelenting effort.” Adam O’Neill is now leading the revival of the athletic center, which contains an Olympic-size pool and basketball courts, and the Catherine Cummings Theatre.
The closing structure is one of the more complex local real estate transactions Madison County has seen in years. 9Fresh acquired the full campus as a single transaction on December 18, 2025, then closed concurrent sales to public partners. The Town of Cazenovia purchased the Jephson Campus property for $1,050,000 to serve as its new town hall, ending the town’s reliance on its current cramped town offices. Madison County purchased Reisman Hall, located at 6 Sullivan Street, and Sigety Hall, located at 10 Seminary Street, for approximately $1.9 million.
Reisman Hall was the former home of the Cazenovia College Art Gallery and is slated under county plans to be repurposed as a public safety facility housing some Madison County Sheriff’s Office administrative staff, road patrol, emergency response operations, and potentially the 911 center. Sigety Hall, which housed the college’s health and counseling offices, is planned for demolition to create surface parking serving the Reisman conversion. The Cazenovia Town Board created a demolition review subcommittee in November 2025 to oversee the Sigety teardown, with public discourse continuing in village meetings through the closing date.
Know before your neighbors do
The Morning Signal hits your inbox at 6 AM with everything that happened overnight. Real incidents, real data, zero fluff.
The deal’s lead figure is Kate Brodock, who established 9Fresh roughly two years ago. Brodock is a venture capitalist, startup operator, and community builder with more than 20 years of leadership experience, serving as Founding Partner at The W Fund and CEO of SWITCH. Her co-leads on 9Fresh are Hardeep Bindra and a third named general partner, with a working team that includes Anne Halsey Flowers, Lisa Cole Burnett, Travis Barr, Linda Morgan, Matt Cashatt, and Brian Davis. Adam O’Neill, who joined the leadership group as a community lead, is taking direct responsibility for the athletic center revival and the Catherine Cummings Theatre. 9Fresh has named the Atlanta-based Oughtness Group as its development partner.
O’Neill told Cazenovia Republican that residents have expressed strong interest in reopening the pool and basketball courts and potentially installing interior turf. “The demand for indoor turf is extraordinarily high,” he said in November interviews with Eagle Newspapers. The athletic complex includes an Olympic-size swimming pool, a fieldhouse, full basketball and volleyball courts, locker rooms, and a fitness floor. The pool sat unused for most of 2024 and 2025 after the college closed. O’Neill’s stated goal is to reopen the pool first, with a community membership model in place.
The historic depth of Cazenovia College is part of why the closing landed with this much weight. The institution was chartered in 1824 as the Seminary of the Genesee Conference, the second Methodist seminary established in the United States. Enrollment in fall 2021 was 746 students, down from 1,042 just five years earlier, a 28.4 percent decline that mirrors private liberal-arts trends across the Northeast. Peak enrollment over the college’s history approached 1,000 full-time-equivalent students. The college defaulted on a $25 million bond payment owed to the Madison County Capital Resource Corporation in September 2022 after a failed refinancing attempt. The Board of Trustees announced the closure decision on December 7, 2022. The college held its 198th and final commencement on May 13, 2023, and officially closed on June 30, 2023.
The closing followed nearly a year of public debate over the Reisman Hall and Sigety Hall pieces of the transaction. Eagle Newspapers covered the September 17, 2025 Madison County board meeting where the county formally approved the $1.9 million purchase, and reported the same week on residents who voiced concerns about a sheriff’s department complex landing inside the village downtown. The Village of Cazenovia formally requested in November 2025 that the county and town participate in the village’s zoning and site plan review processes for the former college properties.
Madison County Board Chairman James J. Cunningham defended the purchase as a cost-saving move. “The Reisman and Sigety Halls purchase represents a multimillion-dollar savings to our Madison County residents by avoiding a new public safety facility that was close to design and construction in Canastota,” Cunningham said in statements covered by Eagle News Online and Madison County’s own public information office. The county had already begun design work on a new build in Canastota, the county seat, before the Cazenovia College closure created a less-expensive alternative.
For 9Fresh’s plan on the campus core, the strategy is multi-phased mixed use. The investor group has proposed a business and technology district on the main academic campus, with residential housing options, commercial space, and cultural programming. Historic building exteriors will be preserved, with interior conversions to office, lab, and apartment use. The 9Fresh website lists the partnership with the Oughtness Group of Atlanta, Georgia, which brings multinational development experience combined with a community development model.
The 240-acre equine center is the largest piece of the campus that 9Fresh is retaining without immediate restructuring. The equine center was a signature program of Cazenovia College and is one of the few facilities of its scale in Central New York. 9Fresh has said the center will continue equine activities and will introduce agricultural and leisure programming. The acreage gives the partnership flexibility to host clinics, equestrian competitions, and outdoor recreational programming that draws regional traffic.
The economic-development case 9Fresh is making to Cazenovia residents centers on local control. The investor pool was deliberately built with local community investors and alumni rather than outside institutional capital. Brodock’s stated philosophy, posted on the 9Fresh website, frames the campus as an “innovation district” mixing technology, culture, and community. The deliberate inclusion of Catherine Cummings Theatre under O’Neill’s portfolio is meant to preserve the village’s largest performing-arts venue, which had operated as both a college and a community asset before the closure.
For the village’s downtown, the most immediate consequence of the deal is the relocation of 40 to 60 Madison County jobs into the village core once Reisman Hall is converted. That puts daily lunch and after-work foot traffic in close range of Lakeland Drive’s restaurants and shops. For the equine community, the 240-acre center remains in operation rather than being subdivided for residential lots, which had been a fear in the months before 9Fresh emerged as the buyer. For local students and athletes, the planned Olympic-pool reopening fills a real gap, since Cazenovia Lake itself is not a year-round swim option and the closest indoor competition pool is otherwise in Liverpool or Manlius.
The Catherine Cummings Theatre piece of the project is also notable. The theatre was a regular venue for community concerts, college productions, and visiting touring acts before the closure. O’Neill’s stated plan is to reopen the venue with a programming calendar that draws on regional performing-arts groups and on the kind of small-format concerts the Cazenovia Counterpoint chamber music festival has historically programmed. The performing-arts circuit in northern Madison County had been thin during the college’s final years and the post-closure interval. Catherine Cummings reopening would restore the only mid-size proscenium stage in the village.
The county’s plan for Reisman Hall remains the most controversial element of the package. Cazenovia residents at the village board’s November 4, 2025 meeting voiced concerns about adding a sheriff’s department complex in the heart of the village. The Cazenovia Town Board’s demolition review subcommittee, created at that same meeting, is reviewing the planned Sigety demolition. The county has stated publicly that nothing in the Reisman conversion will affect existing village zoning, and Mayor Wheeler has said the village will use its site plan review authority to ensure the conversion preserves the building’s exterior character.
Wheeler’s full statement on the December 18 closing, delivered to Eagle News Online and quoted in Spectrum Local News coverage, framed the deal as a turning point. “2026 is going to be a great year for Cazenovia with multiple new economic opportunities on the horizon,” Wheeler said. The athletic center reopening, the Catherine Cummings programming start, the town hall move, and the first phase of Reisman Hall conversion are all targeted within the calendar year.
What is verified now: a $9.5 million closing on December 18, 2025; a $1.9 million county purchase of Reisman and Sigety Halls; a $1,050,000 town purchase of Jephson Campus; the retention of the 240-acre equine center by 9Fresh; the planned reopening of the Olympic pool and Catherine Cummings Theatre under Adam O’Neill’s lead; and Mayor Kurt Wheeler’s public endorsement of the deal. The first physical milestone fans can watch for in 2026 is the athletic center community-membership rollout, which O’Neill has said will be the year’s earliest public reopening. The next county milestone is the Sigety Hall demolition review, which the Cazenovia Town Board’s subcommittee is expected to advance through the spring.
Sources & Verification
- Eagle News Online, “9Fresh gains local control of Caz College properties,” December 28, 2025, eaglenewsonline.com/new/business/2025/12/28/9fresh-gains-local-control-of-caz-college-properties/
- CoStar, “Historic Cazenovia College campus sells for $9.5 million,” costar.com article 1375239153
- WSYR/iHeart, “Investors Acquire Cazenovia College for Mixed-Use Development,” January 7, 2026, wsyr.iheart.com
- Spectrum Local News, “Madison County to purchase 2 buildings on former Cazenovia College campus,” September 17, 2025, spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny
- Eagle News Online, “Residents voice concerns about county’s planned purchase of two Caz College campus buildings,” September 15, 2025
- Eagle News Online, “Cazenovia Town Board creates demolition review subcommittee,” November 5, 2025
- Eagle News Online, “Village board updated on Caz College campus redevelopment efforts,” January 12, 2026
- Madison County NY, “What is Madison County’s interest in the former Cazenovia College campus? FAQ,” madisoncounty.ny.gov/m/newsflash/home/detail/554
- Inside Higher Ed, “Cazenovia College to close in 2023,” December 8, 2022
- WRVO Public Media, “Cazenovia College’s last day of class before the school closes for good,” May 2, 2023, waer.org sister station
- New York State Education Department, Cazenovia College Closure Information page, nysed.gov/college-university-evaluation/cazenovia-college-closure-information
- 9Fresh, organizational page, 9fresh.co/who-we-are/
- Kate Brodock, katebrodock.com, for principal background
By Mike Rivera, business and development reporter. Edited by Frank Mahoney. Published 2026-05-11. Photos: Idawriter via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0, October 2012) and mulmatsherm via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0, November 2005).
