May 6th, 2009
Fergus Falls Artifact Auction
This summer, the city of Fergus Falls (Minnesota) will be holding an auction to sell off items from the former Fergus Falls State Hospital. Items include tools, medical equipment and office supplies — “everything from crutches to wardrobes to giant kitchen mixers.” The auction will probably happen in June, but the city hasn’t yet set an exact date for it. You can read all about it here: City Selling RTC Artifacts.
As usual, the most intriguing part about that Fergus Falls Journal article is the comments section (no offense to the FFJ reporters, it’s just that the juicy gossip naturally shows up in the public’s commentary). A few readers express concern that the proposed college will never materialize and criticize the lack of publicly available information about it. There’s also some speculation that the building is being looted and that an antique pool table was spirited off to someone’s private residence.
They mention demo a lot in that article. What’s the latest on Fergus Falls and the Chinese school, etc.?
The official word seems to be that the Chinese college is on track and is pretty much a sure thing even though no agreement has been finalized. But, there hasn’t been much evidence of any progress on that front lately and that’s got a few people wondering if the deal is going to fall (or has already fallen) through.
I’d like to believe that the school is going to materialize, but I can’t help suspecting that the people making noise about demolition are on to something.
According to another article from March on the topic, “Financial closure is set to be made on the international business school project by June 30, 2009.” Hopefully there’ll be some sort of clear answer to this question after that date.
The place seems to be in very good condition. I don’t think they’d move right to total demo so fast just because the Chinese deal fell through. I guess we’ll see soon.
If I remember correctly, the city government set a December 31st, 2008 deadline by which a deal for the college had to be made, or else they were going to accept funds from the state for demolition.
On the bright side, I just found this article which counters the naysayers’ suspicions about the college falling through: RTC College Curriculum Nearly Set