Orange Coast College sells its Canadian island
The Costa Mesa community college that was given a craggy British Columbia island has sold it for $2.19 million to two men and a woman from a suburb near Calgary, officials said Tuesday.
The buyers plan to use it as a vacation retreat, school officials said.
Henry Wheeler, a yachtsman from Downey, donated the island 50 miles north of Vancouver to the college in December 2002 after using it for nearly a decade as a family vacation retreat.
The community college had hoped to transform the property into a field research station.
Orange Coast held summer classes on the 36-acre island for four years, but the property became a burden when annual maintenance costs climbed to nearly $200,000.
After extensive debate, the foundation decided in the fall of 2006 to put the island up for sale.
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