Minnesota State trustees Tuesday agreed to offer for sale a Minneapolis mansion that Minneapolis Community and Technical College no longer uses.
The H. Alden Smith House has an appraised value of negative $3.3 million, so the college is throwing in two adjacent properties worth $1.4 million. The city of Minneapolis is expected to sell all three parcels for a dollar in a pass-through sale to a developer.
“This is an opportunity for us to enable the restoration of that facility,” said Brian Yolitz, vice chancellor for facilities for the state college and university system.
As part of the deal, the college will spend about $379,000 demolishing the Black Box Theater and paying the city for facilitating the sale.
But that’s far less than the $1.55 million it expected to spend maintaining the mansion over the next 10 years.
The board’s facilities committee last month postponed action that would have declared the property as surplus. They approved the action Tuesday and the full board is expected to do the same Wednesday.
Yolitz assured trustees that even without the mansion, MCTC would have enough instructional space to handle twice as many students.
MCTC’s foundation bought the mansion for $350,000 in 1993 and gave it to the college, which never found a good use for it.
Trustee Dawn Erlandson noted Tuesday that she used to serve on the MCTC foundation board.
“I’m mildly nauseous that we actually paid for the building,” she said.
The only historic home left in the neighborhood near Loring Park, the mansion served for decades as a mortuary. The 1991 movie “Drop Dead Fred” was filmed there.
Trustee Louise Sundin was grateful the mansion will not be demolished.
“Some of us have seen some of the most wonderful buildings in the state demolished and sent to the dump,” she said. “These are cherished buildings and I’m glad we’re not going to be a part of its demise.”
Developers are expected to rehabilitate the mansion and build new multifamily housing on the adjacent land, which now holds a garden and the theater.
The final sale and development plan will be subject to the approval of two key trustees.