In an unprecedented move, hundreds of plots of vacant land belonging to the bankrupt Archdiocese of Santa Fe are set to hit the auction block as part of a settlement of child sex-abuse lawsuits, station KRQE reported.

The online auction begins Sept. 21 with opening bids as low as $500, the station said, in what is the first time a diocese has taken such a step on such a scale, according to the station. 

“Some of these lots, I’ll be honest with you are in locations where there are no existing infrastructure presently,” Louis B. Fisher III, national director SVN Auction Services, LLC told the station.

The auction will be conducted in different phases, with the first phase to be 138 parcels in in Bernalillo, Sandoval and Valencia counties, the story said.

The second phase, expected to begin in November, will have property from 15 other counties. The auction includes residential and commercial property, as well as some labeled special zoning. Some lots will be sold individually, others packaged.

There are a total of 385 claimants in the Catholic archdiocese's bankruptcy, according to the station.

“As publicly as things are unfolding, there is an opportunity here for closure in the minds of a lot of abuse survivors to know that they spoke up, that they were heard, that the archdiocese acknowledged the wrongdoings of the past and took responsibility for those wrongdoings,” said Levi Monagle, attorney for several abuse survivors.  

For more information go to svngilmoreauction.com/auctions/detail.