MARSHALL — A proposal to open a special education and alternative learning center in a building on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University hit a setback when the Minnesota Legislature failed to pass a bonding bill this spring.

Now, project planners are looking at other options to make it work.

“Once we had determined that it didn’t look like there was going to be a special session, we looked at, how can we pivot?” said Kim Barse of ORB Management.

Barse and Southwest West Central Service Cooperative executive director Cliff Carmody gave Marshall school board members an update on the proposal Monday.

Barse said planners were talking to SMSU about possibly leasing the building, as well as looking for other ways to finance the project.

Last fall, SWWC, Marshall Public Schools and SMSU brought forward the idea of turning the Social Science building at SMSU into a joint alternative learning and special education center. The learning center would replace the current MATEC facilities in Marshall, and SWWC’s current Educational Learning Center in Belview.

They sought about $5 million in state bonding money to help cover renovations to the building.

However, the bonding bill didn’t get passed, Barse and Carmody said.

School board member Bill Swope asked if there was still a possibility the bill would be addressed in the next legislative session.

“I would be surprised if there was a reconsideration of that,” Carmody said.

The questions of whether lawmakers return to the bonding bill items could depend a lot on the outcome of this fall’s elections. Plus, it’s not a bonding year, he said.

“I think the key here for us has been every day we wait, things get more expensive,” Carmody said.

Barse said proponents of the regional learning center talked with SMSU about a possible lease arrangement for the building.

“They’re in the process of drafting a lease for our review,” he said.

The goal would be to present that draft to the board of trustees at the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities. He estimated that they would be able to see the draft lease sometime in the next 30 days or so.

Barse said planners are also looking at other financing options.

“One of the things we’ve done over the last 30 to 45 days is we’ve met with three financial institutions in the Marshall area, just to talk about the project and get an idea of what I would call preliminary terms,” Barse said.

MPS Superintendent Jeremy Williams said it hasn’t been determined yet how the $5 million combined cost for the project would be split up between SWWC and the school district.

For the school district’s part of the project, Williams said, “The financing for that would happen through the lease levy that we currently use to pay for the MATEC site, so we’re not looking at an additional cost.”