MARSHALL — Marshall Public Schools now has a plan to move forward with a new location for MATEC, school district officials said this week.

During Monday’s school board meeting, board members approved an agreement with Southwest West Central Service Cooperative to lease a building on the campus of Southwest Minnesota State University.

“We’ve been working with the service co-op and southwest state on this for over a year,” said MPS Superintendent Jeremy Williams.

The school district, SWWC, and SMSU sought to turn the university’s current social science building into an alternative learning center. MATEC would move into part of the building, while some of the remaining space would become a new Educational Learning Center for SWWC.

Williams said MATEC could move into the new space in fall 2024.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity to move out here. The approval of this sub-lease would allow us to continue to move forward with the planning,” Williams said.

With some programs currently at MATEC planned to move out to the district’s new Career and Technical Institute, MATEC would need less square footage, Williams said. “We really feel like this location will be a great fit for that need.”

Under the sub-lease agreement discussed Monday, SWWC would lease the building from the university, and MPS would sub-lease about half the space from the cooperative. Both MATEC and the cooperative would share some areas like cafeteria and recreational spaces.

The sub-lease agreement has a term that starts Aug. 1, 2024, and ends in 2044, unless the agreement is terminated before then. The agreement would give MPS access to the building starting this summer, in order to construct improvements.

“There won’t be a lot of remodeling anticipated,” Williams said.

The total rent cost for the sub-lease will be about $2.88 million, spread out in monthly payments over the term of the agreement. The annual rent for 2024-2025 would come to $123,303. The agreement said MPS would also pay utility costs on its portion of the building.

School board members voted to approve the sub-lease agreement, with board member Bill Mulso abstaining.

“I think this will be a great move for the program,” said school board chairman Matt Coleman.