St. Cloud School Board Pulls Back Making Decision on Former Wilson Building

ST. CLOUD - The St. Cloud area school district is pulling back on making a decision to sell the former Wilson Elementary School building.

Little Saints Academy has leased the building since 2011. It's owned by District 742, and they previously started discussions about selling the property.

The future of the site was discussed during the district finance and audit commitee meeting on Thursday morning. School board member Debbie Erickson says the district has entered into a lease agreement with Little Saints that extends until May 2017.

"So at this point that business will be maintained there until that point, so we're in a long term relationship."

The district will now work on structuring a process to allow the community to give more feedback on the future of the building. Jane Brown spoke at the meething, urging the district to preserve the history in the area.

"It's a historic neighborhood, one of the few left in the area. Is this about the price or is it about what's important to St. Cloud?"

At a community meeting on October 27th, School Boar Chair Dennis Whipple was at the meeting. He said the board started receiving bids back in April, with the biggest player being a St. Paul-base developer, CommonBond Communities, for $600,000. CommonBond pulled their offer right before the meeting, leaving Little Saint’s Academy with the only offer on the table.

The item will come again before the finance committee for future review.