If you're in the market for a former motel turned university dorm, you might be in luck.
UND is looking to sell Dakota Hall, an off-campus building, to help finance its grander plans for campus revitalization. The university recently was authorized to transfer ownership of the building by the state Legislature in its latest appropriations bill for higher education.
Dakota Hall was formerly operated as the Roadking Inn before it was purchased by the university for $1.2 million through a 2003 donor agreement intended to give the school some additional student housing space. The now-unoccupied facility at 1015 N. 43rd St. in Grand Forks took in 259 students in its early days but was phased out of the housing pool in about 2009. After that, the hall served at various points as spillover or temporary office space, housing for a time the IT functions of the North Dakota University System campus office.
UND facilities leader Mike Pieper said the hall is now used for "basically just furniture storage."
The Herald reported in 2010 that faculty members displaced by a major addition and renovation of the Education Building moved briefly into Dakota Hall while their own space was unavailable. That arrangement only lasted for the better part of a summer, as nearly a dozen of the relocated employees soon complained of allergy symptoms initially believed to be a result of exposure to mold. Air quality testing conducted in late summer proved inconclusive, the Herald reported.
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The building was eventually cleared of personnel altogether.
The sale of Dakota Hall-as well as the announced intent to find some additional revenue using the grounds of the former Ray Richards Golf Course-has been noted by UND leaders as a likely source of funding for its Coulee to Columbia initiative. That initiative consists of a broad set of goals which target major upgrades to university facilities along the main campus corridor spanning between the English Coulee and Columbia Road.
Pieper said the university doesn't yet have a deal in place to transfer the building.
