MARSHALL — A proposal to turn a building on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University into an alternative learning center took an important step forward last week.

The board of trustees of the Minnesota State system of colleges and universities gave its approval for the building to be leased out.

After hearing the news, the Marshall School Board voted Monday to keep moving forward with plans to lease and renovate the building.

It’s been about a year since Marshall Public Schools, the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative and SMSU first brought forward an idea of turning the university’s current Social Science building into a joint alternative learning and special education center.

The learning center would replace the current MATEC facilities in Marshall, as well as SWWC’s current Educational Learning Center in Belview.

On Monday, Kim Barse of ORB Management gave school board members an update on the planning process. The Minnesota State board of trustees gave its approval for leasing the Social Science building on Nov. 16, Barse said.

“This approval was required for the project to move forward,” Barse said. “So with that, I wanted to give a brief look ahead in regards to some overall next steps.”

He said the next big part of project planning would be to work out the lease, as well as financing options to renovate the building. Originally, supporters of the project had sought about $5 million in state bonding money to help cover the cost of renovations. However, the Minnesota Legislature didn’t pass a bonding bill this spring, which led planners to look at other options.

“We’ve been working with the city of Marshall with regards to the mechanism that would be utilized, and that would be a conduit revenue bond,” Barse said. “We’ll be working with the city and their public finance advisor on an overall timeline, and we’ll also be working with a local financial institution that will assist in the overall process.”

After working on the lease and financing, the next steps for the project would be to lay groundwork for the building design process, Barse said. After that, they would be looking at construction bids, permitting, and closing on financing. Renovations could potentially start in fall 2023.

“That’s just a high-level overview,” Barse said. He said there would be a lot of information about the lease, financing and leasehold improvements that would formally come back to the school board during the planning process.

Barse said he was looking for permission from the school board to keep moving forward on the lease and leasehold improvements for the Social Science building.

School Board members voted to approve that action, with board member Bill Mulso abstaining from the vote.