The James J. Hill Center — an iconic structure in downtown St. Paul — is up for sale four months after the century-old reference library and business center closed to public use.

Built by Great Northern Railway magnate James J. Hill, the 44,000-square-foot center sits on more than an acre of land overlooking Rice Park.

The facility struggled to find financial footing in recent years. In 2013, it changed its name to the James J. Hill Center to showcase entrepreneurial services. Also in recent years it served as a wedding venue.

Tamara Prato, executive director of the center, said Monday that “my best hope is it’s somehow accessible to the public in some form or fashion as that was Mr. Hill’s original intent.”

The property sale has garnered interest from a variety of organizations, including retail establishments, restaurants and office managers, said Frank Sherwood, vice president of CBRE Minneapolis, the real estate firm responsible for the sale.

The firm does not have an asking price for the property. “Offers encouraged. Negotiable price,” reads the property’s online listing.

“We have no preference,” Sherwood said. “We’re agnostic on who buys it. It’s a very unique asset.”

Sherwood said James J. Hill built the property for his wife, complete with amenities such as bookshelves made of solid brass.

“He spared no expense,” Sherwood said of the library, which housed Hill’s voluminous business records. “There is nothing else quite like it.”

Not to be confused with the city’s adjoining George Latimer Central Library, the Hill Center is privately owned and operated by a nonprofit board that made the decision in July to shutter the venue.

At the time, board officials said mounting maintenance costs for the historic structure threatened to eat into the $13 million to $15 million endowment.

The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

The building, built in the Italian Renaissance style with a Beaux Arts facade of Tennessee marble, first opened its doors to patrons in 1921.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, it served as a gathering place for out-of-work state residents seeking job retraining. By 1940, the library — which had opened with 10,000 volumes — held 142,000 books.

After partnering with colleges and universities on international studies programs in the 1950s, the James J. Hill Reference Library refocused itself in 1976 on business growth and economic development in Minnesota.

The library debuted its first entrepreneurial venture — the fee-based HillSearch custom research service — in 1993. Its growing list of research tools at the time included CD-ROMs and electronic databases.

The center is not affiliated with the Minnesota Historical Society’s James J. Hill House on Summit Avenue or the J.J. Hill Montessori School on Selby Avenue, other than that Hill remains a strong presence in St. Paul.

Hill arrived in St. Paul from Canada as a teen in the 1850s. Although he had little formal education, he went on to build the largest railroad company in America. Hill — dubbed “The Empire Builder” — died in St. Paul in 1916. He was 77.

His railroad survives to this day as part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.