Dallas sspx bought land to build.
Hope it doesn't turn into a horrible place like others shown in this thread.

Yeah, their new buildings are half Novus Ordo - half Traditional at best.  I still don't understand why they're building like gangbusters.  There just HAS to be some notion of an imminent regularization and then an influx of new "parishioners".  Nothing else makes sense.

As I've said before, historically the mentality of Traditional Catholics has always been that this situation in the Church is highly abnormal and will eventually be fixed by God.  At that point, the buildings stolen by the Conciliar usurpers will be restored to use by Tradition.  But it's as if this whole Conciliar thing is being accepted as a "new normal" by the SSPX.  Why build a church in any of these areas that probably already have dozens of churches that are much nicer than what they're building ... many of which cannot be reproduced at any price today due to lack of skilled artisants?

Nice thought, however, we have to live in the now. We might not even see the restoration of the buildings during our lifetime. Even sedevacantist groups build new buildings, there's nothing strange about that. Some older buildings at certain locations may be even more expensive to repair and maintain, especially if they have not been in use for some time.

$70/$40 million goes a LONG way towards renovation/repair.

Nice thought, however, we have to live in the now. We might not even see the restoration of the buildings during our lifetime. Even sedevacantist groups build new buildings, there's nothing strange about that. Some older buildings at certain locations may be even more expensive to repair and maintain, especially if they have not been in use for some time.

There's no doubt that the SSPX could simply have built additions to the existing Winona seminary, and saved many millions, but for various reasons, it preferred not to:

1) The ghost of Bishop Williamson haunts those halls, and the SSPX was eager to signal a new formation by building a new edifice for an altogether new (branded) formation (which would be more agreeable to Rome, and therefore conducive to "reconciliation").

2) By relocating to be near the Masonic capital of the world, the SSPX also telegraphed it was ready to come to terms with DeepChurch: All the reasons the Society formerly adduced as benefits to the central location in Winona, its relative isolation, proximity to airports, and vast acreage were suddenly forgotten, and now was touted the cultural benefits of being near Washington DC!  What was once perceived as an enemy Masonic stronghold was now "culturally beneficial").  Soon it would be subservient to that Masonic government, closing its chapels upon order and even accepting its death jab (which +Vigano has noted is a kind of indelible mark like a baptism into the NWO).

See this long-forgotten article adducing the reasons and benefits of moving to Virginia, and see if you are convinced by the sincerity of the reasons contained therein:

https://www.winonapost.com/news/seminary-says-goodbye/article_6ebdbcb0-2213-513b-83a7-7baaefd5e9b2.html 

3) Although the 2012 deal had fallen through, SSPX leadership was still resolved (perhaps more than ever) to achieve a practical accord, and the thought was that along with reconciliation would come vocations.  Lots of them.  Bishop Fellay had fallen victim to the same siren song as Dom Gerard, Bishop Rifan, and many others before him, who believed that regularization would open to the SSPX a huge field for the apostolate.

Yes, perhaps, but as noted by Dom Laurenco Fleichman in an open letter printed in The Angelus, rebuking the priests of Campos:

"When your Fraternity was conducting the current negotiations, I spoke to Fr. Fernando (Rifan) on the phone. He gave me three reasons that he considered sufficient for going ahead and concluding the agreement, even though the Vatican has not agreed to allow the Tridentine Mass: 1) many new persons would rejoin Tradition; 2) we would have a foot in the door of modernist Rome for preaching Tradition; 3) we could still go back to our former position in case we were unduly pressured.

These are precisely the same arguments as those of Dom Gerard in 1988; to me, shockingly so. Firstly, because then you knew how to critique Dom Gerard's position, as was so necessary at the time. Second, because today the logical conclusion you are obliged to reach is that Dom Gerard was right! He preceded you by ten years, which obliges you to believe that his assessment then was better than yours.

I think that the following affirmations are undeniable: 1) The new people that will join you will not desire to convert to true Tradition. They will come to you because the legal obstacles have been removed, and not for reasons of faith. They will be very sympathetic, but they will not be seeking the whole truth with the doctrinal conviction that leads souls to martyrdom; 2) Being in modernist Rome‑and this is proven‑invariably results in contamination by the guiding principles of Vatican II, administered in homeopathic doses until the fruit falls, as the St. Peter's Fraternity fell; 3) As for going back: who among them has ever returned to his former position? They would rather concelebrate with the Pope than go back. And if they did go back, what would become of the faithful in their parishes? Would they all go back? How many would be entangled over the question of legality? I consider such an attitude reckless; it does not take into account the constancy of the souls that Providence has entrusted to you. You regularize on paper a phony problem of excommunication, and the faithful have only to follow and obey, and then, tomorrow, to about face and retreat with you!

I cannot quite see in this the respect for souls the priestly life requires."

https://www.sspxasia.com/Docuмents/Society_of_Saint_Pius_X/Open_Letter_to_the_Priests_of_Campos.htm

And is this not precisely what has transpired with the SSPX?  People coming to them because BXVI allowed the TLM, and/or because Francis granted faculties for confessions and/or marriages (i.e., they have come because the legal obstacles have been removed, and not for reasons of faith)?

Leaving aside other considerations, such as Lefebvre's rebuke to Dom Gerard that it is the superiors who form the inferiors, and not the other way around, and other quotes regarding the dilution such an influx of conservatives would represent to the quality of the faith preached and received in the Society, Lefebvre also noted the impossible situation which would arise in seminaries attracting two opposite types os seminarian: One that is pro-Rome, and one that is anti-modernist.  And in fact this did happen in the seminary.  But the Society found a solution for this too: A purge of the Williamsonites, and of resistance priests from the Society.  Quite a price to pay!  "We have rediscovered our profound unity" indeed!

Those measures, combined with the new strategy of Francis to regularize by location and incrementally seemed to have succeeded to some degree in opening to the Society the wider apostolate it yearned for. 

But whether the trade-off (quantity for quality) was worth it is debatable to say the least.

These in any case were some of the reasons for the new seminary. 

Unfortunately Japan does not have as many Catholics to minister to, while the US district has many more faithful and I might add, better-off financially overall. I it makes sense to start prudently.

Trento,

In a business sense, Japan is a bad market for traditional Catholics.

In a missionary sense, it is ripe for re-development.  

St. Francis Xavier personally Baptized between 1.6 ~ 3 million souls while he was in Asia.

Has the SSPX even Baptized 30 Japanese since 1976 ?

Their shamefully low profile in that country only proves:

• They do not have the missionary spirit.
• They do not thirst for souls, as does Our Savior.

In a missionary sense, it is ripe for re-development. 

Yes. Having lived in Japan, I can attest that the people there are ripe for conversion.  Besides their natural virtues, they have the seriousness and discipline to become very good traditional Catholics. 

Right, Christendom is still very conservative NO and, in my opinion, openly anti-tradition, but it's not those folks who are attending the sspx chapel.  There was a large contingent who left the Motu Mass at St. John's in town and other locations in the Arlington diocese when bishop shut down Mass and then forbade attending the outdoor Masses that Fr. Reuter had organized.  Bishop Burbidge published a statement in which he called the sspx schismatic.  That backfired on him.

So, apparently many who left the motu remained with the sspx and then they have acquired even more people after Francis' TC. 
Maike Hickson wrote a story about it on Lifesite News.

I didn't know anything about that.  I'll read the article (got it pulled up right here, https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/gratitude-where-gratitude-is-due-my-familys-story-with-the-society-of-st-pius-x/ ).

From bits and pieces I have put together, I have gathered --- and I could be totally wrong --- that traditionalists at Christendom are "allowed to be what they are", and I would assume, in recent years, have attended the diocesan TLM in Front Royal.  I don't know what it was like before the indult, but I would assume the mentality was "the Novus Ordo fell down from heaven, and we have to see the great good in it, and quit thinking about a form of Mass that the Church doesn't want us to be thinking about anymore".  Or something like that.

Being a traditional Catholic at Christendom will put an unfavorable label on you for sure, especially if you are female and refuse to wear pants. It's truly ironic, as they consider themselves "traditional" and have a dress code.  Their version of tradition starts with Vatican II and for them, John Paul II was the greatest pope in the history of the Church.  The president, Dr. O'Donnell, has many connections with "important" people in Rome.  For example, the keynote speaker at their graduation this year will be Cardinal Sarah. 

A few years back, the college chaplain at the time was favorable to the TLM and was offering it a couple times during the week.  Of course, that Mass became popular and there was growing interest and requests to have a Sunday TLM option.  The president struck that down with the excuse that they only wanted to have one Sunday Mass so that the whole community could worship together, even though he himself attended Sunday Mass at his nearby home parish. Consequently, the tradition minded students went to the motu mass at St. John's in town, thereby dividing the "community" aspect he was trying to convey.  And the chaplain was transferred prematurely to the Dominican Republic.  Problem solved.
As for St. John's, the tradition minded priest was sent out to pasture after it was discovered that he was separating the novus ordo from the tlm hosts in the tabernacle. 
The bottom line is that Christendom is in lockstep with apostate Rome.  They have a multimillion-dollar new church to pay for too!

Oh, yes, "Pope Saint John Paul II the Great" (rolling of the eyes here)...  I have long picked up on a type of "groupthink" at Christendom.  To be fair, the "indult" didn't exist when the college was founded, and the default position of so many (including myself at the time) was that the Novus Ordo is the Mass that Our Lord wants for the Church, and again, to be fair, if one has never been exposed to the TLM, and seeks to be totally orthodox in the Faith (which, at the time, was largely determined by the litmus test of Humanae vitae), that is not an unreasonable stance to take.

Quite aside from any TLM-versus-Novus Ordo wars, I've had to question, why did they need to build a new chapel, didn't they already have a perfectly adequate one?  I have visited Christendom, back in the day when they had basically repurposed previously existing buildings, and, yes, they needed something more than what they originally had, but if their enrollment is capped at about 450 students (pretty sure that was Dr Carroll's original vision, I knew Dr Carroll personally), is it really wise stewardship to build one chapel, then a couple of decades later, turn around and build another one?  Can't account for that one.