The Minnesota State higher education system will explore moving its 300 administrative workers out of downtown St. Paul in 2022.
It costs the system around $2.5 million a year to lease 89,000 square feet inside Wells Fargo Place for the chancellor, system office divisions, information technology workers and the board of trustees.
Rep. Jim Knoblach, R-St. Cloud proposed a bill this year that would have forced them to relocate to one or more of their 54 campuses throughout the state.
“I hear from people that their current space is very nice, it’s somewhat inaccessible to people and it’s harder to get into downtown St. Paul” compared with a college or university campus, he said in an interview Wednesday.
“I just think it would be better for the system if they were on a campus and members of the board and administration encountered students and faculty every day.”
If forced to leave, system leaders said, they’d want to stay close to downtown St. Paul in order to retain employees and maintain access to lawmakers. Doing so would require building new offices for an estimated $38 million, they said.
They figure it would take 35-40 years for such a project to make financial sense. Even then, the project would cause delays for more urgent capital needs among the public colleges and universities.
“We would be forcing a brand new, major capital budget request on top of our now significantly backlogged academic capital bonding request,” said Jay Cowles, who heads the board of trustees finance and facilities committee.
Trustees on Wednesday agreed with administrators that they should not build new offices.
However, next summer the system will begin studying its options for signing a lease someplace else. They intend to issue a request for proposals well before the Wells Fargo Place lease expires.
The system offices may not be on a campus, but there is at least symmetry in their St. Paul mailing address. Those overseeing the 30 colleges and seven universities can be found at 30 E. Seventh St.