AMHERST — Amherst Media’s quest to build a new headquarters and technology center on Main Street, a short distance from the Emily Dickinson Museum, is ending with the sale of the land it bought in 2013 for that purpose.

The .56-acre site at 420 Main St., which had been eyed for the nonprofit’s new $1.3 million building, recently sold to Emerald Land Holdings, Inc., of Rutland, for $410,000.

The sale means that Amherst Media, which oversees public access, education and government television channels, will continue to operate from leased space in the Slobody Building at 101 University Drive, where it has been since 2022. The Jones Library is inside the same building on a temporary basis.

Executive Director Rachel Figurasmith confirmed that the sale took place and the focus for Amherst Media will be on education and public service.

It also marks the end of a long-running saga that started when Amherst Media acquired two parcels for $340,000 , coming on the heels of receiving a 2010 eviction notice from Eversource from a building at 246 College St. that it had used since 1991.

In 2020, Amherst Media received approvals from town boards to build a 1-1/2 story Greek Revival building, at a cost of $1.3 million, complying with the requirements of the Emily Dickinson Local Historic District. But there were controversies along the way, with neighbors worried about the impacts of having a building and parking lot on the greenspace.

Three years later, it was announced the building would bear the name of Demetria Rougeaux Shabazz, a former board president and social justice activist who died earlier that year.

Prior to the original sale, Amherst Town Meeting rezoned the site from general residence to neighborhood business, to accommodate Amherst Media’s possible use.

The lots became available after an earlier effort by the town to acquire the land to protect the viewshed of the historic Henry F. Hills House and the Hills Memorial Club House, used by the Amherst Woman’s Club, failed. That would have turned the property into the Hills Historical Landscape Park.