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Church Selling Saugatuck Campground to Pay $7.9 Million Debt

Posted at 8:01 PM, Feb 10, 2014
and last updated 2014-02-11 05:51:08-05
Screen shot 2014-02-10 at 8.02.19 PM

Photo courtesy: Chicago Tribune

SAUGATUCK, Mich. (Feb. 10, 2014) — A Chicago Presbyterian church’s Saugatuck campground is being sold to pay a $7.9 million debt.

According to Chicago Tribune, Chicago Presbytery church commissioners voted 154-89 Saturday to approve the sale.

The debt is the result of a 2007 settlement with several men who claimed they had been sexually abused by a Presbyterian minister.

The Presbytery took out a multimillion dollar loan using the campground as collateral, a decision that at the time was unknown by many of the roughly 33,000 Chicago church members, according to the Tribune.

The 130-acre Presbyterian Camps property in Saugatuck was sold to developer David Barker for a total of $10 million.  According to the Tribune he has proposed building houses on part of the land.