St. Cloud School Board To Put former Wilson School on the Market

ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud school district is planning to put the former Wilson School up for sale within the next month.

Board Chair Jeff Pollreis says the board still needs to vote on selling the property, but that's the option they are leaning toward following a work session Wednesday night.

He says they will be holding a community input session Saturday on what residents envision going into that space.

What do they envision coming into that building and those vacant lots that would enhance and keep it a residential feel in that area. The school district is willing to listen to all those ideas and try to steer the purchase toward something that will appease residents and benefit the district financially because we do have multiple obligations.

Pollreis says following the input session he would report back to the finance committee at its March 15 meeting. From there, the finance committee would make a recommendation to the board at their March 20 meeting, where the board could vote to sell the property.

He says given its age, the cost to bring it up to code and no overall use for the property, the board wants to make sure they're acting in the best interest of the community.

We've had our demographic report, we've had numerous meetings, project of student population growth and there is no data that would support our need for that building. We just assume to move that property and find something nice to put into that community.

Pollreis says they don't have a set selling price in mind and will let the market dictate the price.

The former Wilson school was built in 1931 and was previously home to Little Saints Academy, who vacated the building in November and expanded their St. Joseph location.

The community input session on the school will be held in the commons area at Cathedral High School starting at 10:00 a.m. Saturday.