by Tom Coombe For the second time in five years, the city of Ely has sold its historic Community Center building. Earlier this week, city officials finalized the sale of the 85-year-old landmark - for $2 - to developer Matt Stupnik of Dellwood, Minn. Stupnik’s vision for the facility is a 28-room hotel, and his deal with the city gives him up to three years to bring the concept to reality. Renovation of the facility is expected to begin in 2023. The city previously sold the building, which is on the National Historic Register of Historic Places, to the K America Foundation. That agreement, struck in 2018, fell apart and the city regained ownership and put the building back on the market. City officials voiced some relief this week that another buyer had emerged. “It’s been a long and somewhat tortuous path to get to this point again,” said council member Paul Kess. “But this one looks like it’s got all the legs it needs to be successful. We should welcome this new business.” A public hearing on the sale, which has been in the works since last fall, did not generate any citizen input. But council discussion also revealed more details about the proposal laid out by Stupnik, who entered into an exclusive negotiating period with the city in late-2021. Stupnik plans an overhaul and expensive remodel of the Community Center, which has been vacant for nearly a decade, and turn it into a boutique hotel. Construction and material costs could top $4 million, according to estimates by city officials this week. Plans for the main level include a kitchen, wine and beer bar, and a lobby with an espresso bar, along with hotel rooms. The spacious auditorium on the top floor of the building, once home to dances and concerts, would be split in half. Part would be converted to separate one and two-bedroom hotel units, while the stage area would be venue for performances and event space. The projector room in the building is envisioned as a hotel penthouse suite, complete with roof access. Hotel guests could go to the lower level of the building, the area where numerous wedding receptions and dinner functions were once held, and use a spa center with a sauna and mineral baths. As it did with the K American Foundation, which outlined plans for up to $3 million in renovations to the facility, the city’s contract with Stupnik will include benchmarks and progress points that must be completed. The contract includes a reversion clause that would allow the city to regain ownership if progress is not met. Stupnik has a background in solar construction, and he’s submitted his plans for review by Minnesota’s Historic Preservation Office. He also plans to follow the National Park Service’s standards for reuse of historic structures. City leaders say they have concerns related to parking, and Stupnik must come up with a plan to come up with 28 parking spaces during the three-year renovation window. Decades ago, the Community Center served as an Ely hotspot, housing not only the library and offices but a kitchen, cafeteria and auditorium that were used for numerous community events, It has been vacant since 2014, when the city closed the building after moving the library to a new facility across the street from City Hall. Efforts to repurpose the building have stalled and the building needs extensive renovations and repairs, estimated at $2.75 million in a 2014 study. The city commissioned a reuse study that can be found on the city’s website, and ideas have run the gamut, from using the building for its original purposes to perhaps turning it into rental housing, a hotel or community garden. City officials had high hopes when they sold the building for $30,000 to the K America Foundation, which hoped to make Ely a destination for Korean adoptees and their families and put together plans for Korean culture camps. Those plans failed to take hold and the city got the building back in 2020. In addition to the economic development created by the renovation, plans call for the hotel to have eight-to-10 employees. “I think it’s exciting that something valuable to our community is being proposed,” said council member Al Forsman. “There is significant investment in our community that is being put forth. And with that comes our trust, knowing it’s going to be generating dollars for our community both in job and improving the property and taxes eventually.”

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