On Monday, April 10, the Existing OHS Citizens’ Task Force presented their recommendation for the current OHS building to the Owatonna School Board. In their recommendation, they suggested that the ISD 761 proceed with their original plan of demolishing the remaining sections of the high school that will not be used by the district. Here’s a deep dive into the recommendation:

What is the Existing OHS Citizens’ Task Force?

During the fall of 2021, the School Board asked superintendent Mr. Jeff Elstad if he could put together a group of diverse community members to help them come up with recommendations for the future of the current OHS building. After taking applications open to the whole community, the 25-member Existing OHS Citizens’s Task Force was formed.

Elstad said, “We had some folks that had lived in the community for 40+ years, and we had others that have been in the community for a shorter time which gave us a nice rich group of perspectives.” 

Throughout the winter, they met periodically to discuss and recommend to the school board what they believe the next steps of this process of conserving or demolishing the Owatonna High School should be.

What parts of the school will the district use?

The task force’s first job was to examine what parts of the existing building could be reutilized and satisfy needs within the district. In the end, they decided on three sections they wanted to keep for the use of the district. First, C Plaza would be repurposed and become the new district office. This would combine and replace the current offices that are located on Rose Street and Bridge Street. Next, the agriculture building would be turned into the new district maintenance shop. It would also become the storage location for all of the district’s vehicles which are currently located at the Rose Street location. Lastly, the gymnasium would become the new home of the Huskies gymnastic team. This would provide the OHS Gymnastics team with a more permanent location instead of their current area on the Steele County Fairgrounds. In early 2022, the task force presented a recommendation to the school board to preserve the three sections for the use of the district.

What other options did they have?

The task force’s second job was to decide what to do with the remaining parts of the campus. In January 2022, the task force recommended that the school board put out a request for proposal. Issued on January 26, 2022, this request gave developers a month to express interest and submit a proposal for the remaining parts of campus. On the last day, they had a private developer, Former OHS LLC, express interest in the campus, but needed more time to develop a detailed plan. The school board afforded this entity, offering a 180-day window to put together  their proposal for the existing building. Within the given time frame, the proposal was returned. The task force and school board reviewed their plans; however, many questions prevailed, and the proposal was sent back to the developers. Ultimately, there were three revisions to the original proposal, but many questions still remained for the district and task force members.

Superintendent Elstad said, “They were looking for far more detail when it came to the financing of this because they did not want to put any more onus on the taxpayers of our school district.” 

This led to the task force’s recommendation to cease all negotiations with Former OHS LLC, and demolish the parts of campus that the district will not be retaining. 

When is a decision going to be made? 

The Owatonna School Board will vote to approve or deny the recommendation made by the OHS Citizen’s Task Force at their next meeting on Monday, April 24 at 5:30 p.m. 

School board Chair Mr. Mark Sebrig said, “[The recommendation] will be an agenda item and the school board will vote to say yes or no, we’re going to proceed with this or not.” 

If the school board approves the recommendation to repurpose usable space and demolish unusable space, the district will begin work later this year.  If the recommendation is not approved the school board will need to go back to the drawing board. However, the recommendation will likely be approved. 

Mr. Sebring said, “I’m hard pressed to believe that any of the seven members of the school board would actually say that was not a good recommendation.” 

With school board approval, the plan to demolish part of the former Owatonna High School will be put in place. The vote will be held at the school board meeting on Monday, April 24 at 5:30 p.m. in the OHS Small Group Forum and will be open to the public.