Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette The Hancock City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday night on the proposed purchase of Wargelin Hall, Nikander Hall and Mannerheim Hall (pictured) for $30,000. If the city buys them, it would put out requests for proposals from developers interested in the buildings, which will be formally abandoned Wednesday if the council declines to buy them.

HANCOCK — The City of Hancock is seeking the public’s opinions on whether it should acquire three former Finlandia University properties to preserve them for future development.

The city council will hold a public hearing 6 p.m. Tuesday on a tentative agreement to purchase Wargelin Hall, Nikander Hall and Mannerheim Hall for $10,000 each. Plans are for it to vote on the agreement later in the meeting, said City Manager Mary Babcock.

O’Keefe & Associates, the court-appointed receiver of Finlandia University properties, filed a motion to abandon those properties in September, saying it was not able to find a suitable offer. It has agreed to put the abandonment of Wargelin, Nikander and Mannerheim on hold pending the approval of a purchase.

The meeting was changed to move it ahead of an Ingham County Circuit Court hearing Wednesday where the court could potentially approve the sale.

“At this point, they are waiting to hear from us if we are going to purchase them … if we do not purchase them, they are going to be abandoned on the 18th,” Babcock said.

Babcock said if the city purchases them, it will provide upkeep and security for the buildings until a permanent buyer can be found. If the city does not step in, the properties would eventually go to foreclosure. Since they are not currently on the tax rolls, they could be without an owner for at least four years, Babcock said.

Because they had not been on the tax rolls, the Finlandia properties did not have an assessed value. The city’s assessor has been working to determine their value since Finlandia University closed.

“The downside of it is they could still sit there for the city,” she said. “But also in some ways, you have to look at it if the city is not willing to invest in ourselves, why should a developer be interested? … It is a big, big thing to take the three buildings on, but it also is a huge part of the city that doesn’t have any ownership. So talking to the police chief, that is a concern for security. And we wouldn’t want people to get in there and the squatters or live there or anything like that.”

O’Keefe had included six properties in its motion. Babcock said the city had picked those three because the others had a bank that held a mortgage on them. That foreclosure process would be faster — about six to nine months, Babcock said.

All three buildings are zoned R-2 (multi-family residential district). Permitted uses include dwellings such as single-family and multi-unit buildings, community activity centers, and public health safety facilities. Other uses, such as libraries, schools and in-home group child day care, are allowed conditionally.

“There’s a lot of possibilities for this to be repurposed, but I think it’s going to be a lot of thinking outside the box, and we have to look at the possibility of the grant options that we can find for somebody that takes this on,” Babcock said. “I don’t know that we have a clear vision of what the future will look like, but we do know that something has to happen.”

Two of the buildings were used academically, while one served as a dorm.

“One of them has a beautiful library in it,” Babcock said. “So hopefully somebody with some imagination can figure out and repurpose for them. But there’s a lot of building and parking might be an issue depending on the development type.”

If the city can’t find a developer, it would eventually go after grants to help fund demolishing the buildings if necessary, Babcock said. Those grants would be easier for the city to get than a private entity.

Hancock is hoping to cover its costs with the sale, Babcock said.

“I feel like with the receiver, what has happened is that those buildings have not been highlighted at all, and there’s never been a price point on them,” she said. “We don’t need to make money on the buildings. We are hopefully going to be the change agent to help them change hands.”

Some of the buildings will require additional costs by whoever takes them on, Babcock said. One currently provides heat for Nikander and the Paavo Nurmi Center. (Paavo Nurmi, another of the buildings slated for abandonment by O’Keefe, will be going to Nicolet National Bank and placed on the market.)

If more buildings become abandoned that have no liens on them, the city will decide on a case-by-case basis whether to make similar acquisitions, Babcock said.

Babcock said the city would appreciate hearing what the public wants Tuesday night.

“I think it’s really a vital time for the city of Hancock, we’re going through our master plan process right now, and the heart of the west downtown area is going to be hugely impacted by Finlandia. And this is the start of formulating what it can be and what kind of control the residents would like the city to have in this process.”