MARSHALL — Some residents of the Broadmoor Valley mobile home park in Marshall say there is still an option to keep the park open.

With help from a Minnesota nonprofit, residents are trying to collectively purchase Broadmoor Valley.

“We don’t want to have to go,” Broadmoor Valley resident Deb Ertl said Monday. “We like where we’re living. We don’t like some of the things about it.”

Cooperative ownership could help give residents a more stable future, said Ertl and Misty Butler, an organizer with the Residents United group advocating for Broadmoor Valley residents.

Victoria Clark-West, executive director of the Minneapolis-based Northcountry Cooperative Foundation (NCF), said Monday that the nonprofit has submitted offers for residents to buy Broadmoor Valley.

“Our goal is to work with the residents of Broadmoor Valley to help them purchase the land beneath their homes and operate a successful, thriving community,” Clark-West said Monday. One formal purchase offer was submitted last week, Clark-West said.

Last week, the owners of Broadmoor Valley confirmed that they intend to close the mobile home park in December 2025. Paul Schierholz, of Schierholz and Associates, said the cost of infrastructure improvements at the park was part of the reason for the pending closure.

As part of the closure process, Broadmoor Valley residents and the city of Marshall were notified of the plan in November. The Marshall City Council will be discussing the issue at its regular meeting tonight.

Ertl said Schierholz hadn’t indicated to residents that he planned to close Broadmoor Valley before residents received letters with the announcement.

“We’re hoping that doesn’t happen,” Ertl said of the closure. Instead, residents hope that Schierholz would be willing to sell the property to a cooperative of residents.

Ertl said the Broadmoor Valley residents association had looked at the idea of buying the park for the past few years.

“We’re hopeful that there is this option,” Butler said. “It has always seemed like a good path forward for stability” for Broadmoor Valley residents, she said.

Clark-West said NCF submitted a letter of intent to purchase Broadmoor Valley in June 2022. They’ve submitted two formal purchase offers this year — one in March and one last week, she said.

Clark-West said she couldn’t comment on the details of the purchase offer. But, she said, “I’m really hopeful there’s a positive outcome for Broadmoor Valley residents.”

NCF has helped residents in a total of 16 manufactured home communities in Minnesota and Wisconsin to purchase the land underneath their homes, Clark-West said. In the process, homeowners form a cooperative, and secure financing to purchase the land. Clark-West said NCF works with lenders like ROC USA Capital, which offers financing for resident-owned communities. They also work with other mission-driven lenders.

So far, residents at one southwest Minnesota mobile home park, Sungold Heights in Worthington, have formed a cooperative. Clark-West said residents purchased the 106-unit park in 2019. She said Sungold Heights was also the first cooperative NCF has worked with to complete a “really massive” infrastructure project, replacing part of their water and sewer systems and roads.

Ertl said she and other residents of Broadmoor Valley still have concerns about the condition of roads and infrastructure in the park.

“We’ve been here for 30 years,” Ertl said of her family. “It’s been a steady decline since Paul took over in 2001.”

Ertl said one positive outcome of Broadmoor Valley residents trying to advocate for better conditions has been that she’s gotten to know other residents more.

“They’re hard-working, good people,” she said.

Butler said Broadmoor Valley residents planned to attend tonight’s city council meeting, and to keep trying to communicate their wants and needs.

It’s expected that the Marshall City Council will set a date and location for a public hearing on issues related to the closure of Broadmoor Valley at tonight’s meeting. Marshall City Administrator Sharon Hanson said the city is required by Minnesota law to hold a hearing as part of the closure process. Residents being displaced may be eligible for payments from the Minnesota Manufactured Home Relocation Trust Fund. The city will also be required to appoint a neutral party to act as an arbitrator for relocation payments and other issues.

Materials in the agenda packet for tonight’s meeting note that there is currently a covenant saying that Broadmoor Valley must continue to be used as a manufactured home park for 25 years. The covenant was part of a Minnesota Housing grant that Schierholz and Associates was awarded.

While the closure process for Broadmoor Valley is going on, the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office still has an open lawsuit against Schierholz and his business. Trial dates for the lawsuit are scheduled in late January and early February, according to Lyon County District Court records.

The Attorney General’s Office sued the Broadmoor Valley owners in 2021, alleging that they had failed to maintain the streets and mobile home park to state standards.

The lawsuit also alleged the owners charged illegally high fees for late rent payments, and retaliated against residents of the park.