The University of Toronto has sold the David Dunlap Observatory and its surrounding property to a development company for 70 million Canadian dollars, or about $68-million. The vice president of the company, Metrus Development, announced that the historic 1935 observatory and its telescope would remain intact, and that Metrus would welcome proposals from astronomers to keep the observatory open for research.

The university said last September that it planned to sell the observatory to the highest bidder, a move that created bitter feelings between the university, astronomers, and the town of Richmond Hill, where the observatory sits.

The observatory contains the largest optical telescope in Canada, and it was the site where, in the early 1970s, the astronomer Tom Bolton conducted research that helped prove the existence of black holes. According to The National Post, Mr. Bolton, along with the David Dunlap Observatory Defenders group, will propose to Metrus a plan to open the facility “to scientists and people who need land-based telescopes.”

Metrus said it would not develop the land until it acquired permits to do so, a process that could take years, The Globe and Mail reported. The university said it would use its share of the sale proceeds to endow the recently established Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics. —Maria José Viñas