The sale of Mayflower Residence Hall could happen by the end of October.
The decision to sell the dorm first came in February when the University of Iowa announced its plan to sell the building and construct a new dorm on the east side of campus. Originally constructed in 1965, Mayflower is currently listed for $45 million on Realtor.com.
In an interview with The Daily Iowan, Iowa City real estate broker Jeff Edberg of Lepic-Kroeger Realtors said while no official decision has been made, the outlook of the sale seems positive. Lepic-Kroeger has worked as a consultant for the UI for over a decade.
“We don’t have anybody actually signed up yet, but there are people that have made proposals,” Edberg said. “They’re going through the university administration, reviewing them. It seems that most people want to keep it kind of the way it is as a private dorm, which is in my opinion, the best use for it anyway.”
In an email to the DI, Tricia Brown, the senior director of internal communication and public relations within the UI’s Office of Strategic Communication, wrote that the UI has no update to share at this time.
Edberg said it is in the “nature of real estate” that there are several stages before a sale of this magnitude is finalized. The university must decide that the buyer is the right fit for the building, and the buyer must finalize the decision that this is the property they truly want. Then, buyers will conduct inspections of the building and additional requests before the sale is complete.
“There will probably be additional requests and all of that sort of under-the-hood type of discussion,” Edberg said. “But I would think that within a month, that would be pretty much firmed up, and that a buyer will be doing their inspections, go through a change of ownership, and move ahead.”