By Roger Bergerson
An educational consortium with headquarters on the southwest corner of Snelling and Larpenteur avenues for the past 20 years is going out of business; its property is up for sale.
This past January, member school districts voted to dissolve Technology Information and Educational Services (TIES) by mid-2019 after a loss of members and decline in revenue.
The property being offered at 1667 N. Snelling in Falcon Heights includes a four-story office building with a distinctive art deco lobby and attached conference center that sit on six-plus acres of land. The main building was renovated five years ago.
The Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association constructed the building in 1946 on the site of a former country estate. It was home to Harvest States Cooperatives until its merger with Cenex in 1998.
TIES was founded in 1967 and provided computer tools for districts to manage finances and student information. In recent years, it had difficulty remaining competitive. In 2014, the organization’s board ordered an internal audit that revealed numerous instances of fiscal mismanagement, including over-spending on the headquarters remodeling.
