WSU’s forlorn Lourdes venture: Final chapter

WINONA, Minn. — The highest bid to acquire the Lourdes Hall dormitory from Winona State was $1 million, the university confirmed belatedly. The buyer was Cotter Schools, which Cotter itself announced earlier but didn’t release the price . The Cotter announcement irritated university leaders. They  had preferred to say nothing about this final chapter in the  university’s ignominious failure to create an elite “residential college” with Lourdes as the centerpiece . The Winona State concept, back in 1998, was for Lourdes, 1-1/2 miles from the main campus, to be a magnet for especially gifted and scholarly inclined students  — a kind of crème de la crème. Put another way:  An undergraduate Harvard on the Mississippi. It didn’t work. Fast forward: Cotter’s plan is to demolish the once-grand, near century old Lourdes landmark. Cotter said it will build a state-of-the-art recreational facility on the site. Through earlier acquisitions, Cotter already has converted Lourdes’ sister buildings, all at the old College of St. Teresa campus, into a K-12 Catholic schooling hub. The Lourdes  demolition won’t be cheap for Cotter.  The project will cost perhaps the better part of an additional $1 million.

Realities setting in at WSU

For Winona State, the sale concluded a long and tortured liquidation process. The sale has been a long story: The university put Lourdes up for sale in 2021 after vacating it as an overflow dorm. When Winona State first decided to sell Lourdes, the talk among university executives was  to ask $5 million. Surely, so it was thought, somebody would have a use for the gorgeous Italianesque structure even though it was needful of extensive renovation lest it fall apart. For Winona State the structure had become a financial albatross. Perhaps “dinosaur” would be a better metaphor for the 217,00-square foot building. Even vacated and empty, the building was costing a fortune to maintain. A search company was hired to find a buyer. A lengthy  nationwide search turned up no serious interest. The university lowered the asking price again and again. Eventually the state university system, of which Winona State is a subordinate unit, set the valuation at $760,000.

Two rounds of bids

Without public announcement, the sale process began unfolding this spring:

External fire escape. Added to meet safety standards in Lourdes’ later years. Financially expedient. Architecturally discordant. Hardly Romanesque. Really tacky.  Image: Steve Lunde

Once grand dining hall. Which doubled for banquets and celebrations in WSU’s early ownership. Image: Mike Henderson

> March 14: The universty sent a letter to parties that had expressed interest in Lourdes previously.

> April 18: Bids were opened from five parties.