MANKATO — The city of Mankato is ready to publicly unveil the extensive renovation of one of its prized public housing venues.

Orness Plaza has gotten a $10 million makeover — nearly all of which was funded by federal dollars — and now the building is modern with built-in sustainability measures that will save money in the long run.

The city has planned an open house event for Friday, June 15, and an esteemed guest will be on hand as a speaker.

Former Vice President Walter Mondale, the man who was the guest speaker when the building first opened, will be here June 15 to reprise that role.

“I have a picture of him when he dedicated the building in 1971,” said Patti Ziegler, the city’s housing coordinator. “I thought it’d be a nice touch if he came back and rededicated it.”

Of the $10 million, $9.16 came from a federal Housing and Urban Development grant. The city had to provide, Ziegler said, “leveraged funds” as well.

“It was a lot of money for our area,” Ziegler said of the HUD grant. “It’s been a great job builder for local contractors, we bought a ton of appliances from DeGroods, used local contractors whenever we could.”

Part of the building’s “green” aspect will be geothermal heating and cooling system, which will be a departure from Orness’ previous system of patchwork air-conditioning units sticking out of the windows of the residents who could afford them. Now, everyone will have comfortable air temperature if they want it.

They’ve also added several new patios and four-season sun rooms. The main floor lobby, which was tiny before, is big enough now to seat 18-20 people.

“There are people down stairs using the lobby all the time now,” Ziegler said.

The new Orness also features a fitness center, something that was a direct result of the city surveying the residents, all of whom must qualify to live there by meeting income and age requirements.

A Minnesota State University professor was consulted on chose fitness equipment appropriate for older users, which is the demographic of Orness Plaza. The equipment includes seated elliptical machines and others designed for older users.

The game room larger, the community room is larger, and, to ensure the building met LEED certification standards, it has a bicycle storage room as well. A rubberized walking track has also been installed.

On the walls inside Orness will be the work of some of the area’s best photographers, including Gregg Anderson, Bayard Black, Brian Fowler and John Cross.

The flag flying over Orness has been donated by Congressman Tim Walz, and the flag is one of those that has been flown over the capitol building in  Washington, D.C.

Before the renovation, Ziegler said, the building’s concrete was cracking and falling off and the building was “just in really bad shape.”

They’d applied twice for help in fixing up the place, and had succeeded somewhat. But only in recent years did enough money come along to really renovate the place. The $10 million was part of the stimulus package introduced by President Obama.