Domino's Founder Unveils Town, Catholic University

Monaghan has faith in town

(Friday, July 20, 2007) - Ten years ago, Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan had a vision to create a "fresh, faithful voice" in Catholic higher education. Now, he has both a university and a brand-new town to put it in.

On Saturday, the town will open its doors to the public.

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Next week, Ave Maria University will move from its cramped quarters in Naples to a permanent campus in Ave Maria, which sits on what used to be about 1,000 acres of tomato plants. The school was founded in Michigan, where Monaghan developed his Domino's Pizza business. Monaghan also owned the Detroit Tigers.

Ave Maria has not been without controversy. The Florida American Civil Liberties Union has threatened to sue if the town bans birth control, as Monaghan suggested in a speech. Catholic educators say he could have found better ways to reach out than to create a town where single-family homes start at $450,000.

Monaghan, 70, remains steadfast. "Everything I do I think I do for the right purposes," he said. "I only have to answer to my God."

The town and university will operate independently, but the Catholic influence is hard to miss. Streets bear names like Assisi and Annunciation. The town center holds a cathedral-size chapel based on a design Monaghan sketched himself. Atop it is a 13-foot-high cross, the highest point in the town.

The seeds for this $400-million enterprise were sown in 1998, the year Monaghan sold his pizza business for $1 billion and founded Ave Maria College, a liberal arts school in Ypsilanti. By 2000, he had founded Ave Maria School of Law there; it is set to relocate to Florida in 2009.

In 2002, real estate development company Barron Collier offered to donate 1,000 acres of southwestern Florida farmland for Monaghan's dream university. He partnered with the company to create a town to support it. He has committed more than $200 million to build the university and invested $100 million to develop the town.

Monaghan dismisses questions about whether the town will tolerate non-Catholic views. But he created a stir last year when he was quoted as having said in a speech to a Catholic men's conference that pharmacies wouldn't be allowed to stock condoms or birth control pills, and cable TV would show no pornography.

Monaghan has since said he misspoke. Project manager Donald Schrotenboer says the town will obey all local ordinances, but officials would prefer that businesses sell only products consistent with a family-friendly environment.

That hasn't appeased the ACLU of Florida, which threatened a lawsuit. Monaghan's "comments on the record give us legitimate concerns about the community he's creating," says Executive Director Howard Simon, a former executive director of the ACLU in Michigan. Although many religious groups have their own communities, "constitutional issues arise when the religious group wants to act as if it also has governmental authority."

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