Mayor Chris Coleman on Thursday made a serious pitch to lure Major League Soccer to St. Paul with a stadium near Snelling and University avenues.
“I believe that in the next few weeks, we could have a clear path forward for a stadium on that site,” Coleman said in a conference call with reporters.
MLS, the top professional soccer league in the U.S., awarded an expansion franchise to second-tier club Minnesota United FC in March. But the team’s request for tax relief on a $150 million, downtown Minneapolis stadium was rebuffed by the state Legislature in May.
That left an opening for St. Paul, and Coleman has stepped in aggressively, inviting MLS officials to tour the site of the old Metro Transit “bus barn” near Interstate 94, which the mayor believes could anchor a walkable urban village along the Green Line light-rail corridor and bus lines.
“We can demonstrate to Major League Soccer sufficiently that there is a plan in place,” Coleman said.
Coleman, MLS Deputy Commissioner Mark Abbott and the United ownership group headed by former UnitedHealth Group chief executive Bill McGuire will meet in St. Paul sometime around the MLS All-Star Game on July 29.
After talking with Abbott on Wednesday, Coleman said he was told the window for MLS soccer in Minnesota “is closing very quickly.”
The league gave United FC a deadline of July 1 to get its stadium funding in order. When that deadline passed without a plan in place, MLS almost immediately turned to St. Paul — although it remains unclear whether United FC is as interested.
McGuire and United President Nick Rogers declined comment.
“I would like to see (the meeting) sooner rather than later, but I also think it would be helpful to have more clarity on some of the deal points before they came in,” Coleman said.
MLS has plans to expand from its current 20 teams to 24 by 2020.
Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson said MLS’ focus on St. Paul will not stop Minneapolis.
“We have a superior site and a more vibrant downtown,” she said.
United beat the Minnesota Vikings and groups in Sacramento, Calif., and Las Vegas for the expansion franchise, in large part because it had a plan to finance a $120 million, open-air stadium on a $30 million parcel near Target Field in downtown Minneapolis.
With $150 million dedicated on top of a $100 million MLS franchise fee, United asked state lawmakers in May for breaks on property taxes, as well as the sales tax on construction equipment.
Even as Gov. Mark Dayton praised United’s willingness to absorb the lion’s share of financing, the plan fell with a thud. Citing “stadium fatigue” after long battles that resulted in public money for Minnesota Twins and Vikings stadiums, lawmakers expressed virtually no interest, and the legislative session ended without even the introduction of a bill.
Minneapolis City Council member Jacob Frey introduced a proposal to cap property taxes on the proposed stadium site, but no council action was taken. Johnson said the council also will look to partner with Hennepin County.
“We would have to agree on a strategy to go to the Legislature again, and they won’t meet again until next winter,” Johnson said. “We don’t have the ability to forgive property tax on our own as a city.”
ST. PAUL’S SITE
The Metropolitan Council owns a 10-acre parcel that formerly housed its “bus barn,” and the adjoining parcel is owned by shopping mall developer RK Midway. The Met Council and the city of St. Paul, together with the St. Paul Riverfront Corp., have been studying and promoting the sites to the development community together since 2012.
“A substantial portion of that property, the old bus barn site, has been off the tax rolls for over 50 years, so this wouldn’t be a loss of tax revenue,” Coleman said.
The Minneapolis City Council, meanwhile, has established a working group to look at the impacts of property and sales taxes associated with a stadium and plans to present its findings in September.
Coleman said Thursday that he doesn’t want a repeat of St. Paul and Ramsey County’s history of negotiating for stadiums only to have Minneapolis and Hennepin County swoop in and finish the deal, as happened with the Vikings and Twins.
“(I) have made it very clear to the ownership group that I have no intention of just being used as a pawn in a negotiation,” Coleman said. “I’m confident that these are very serious conversations.”
In 2013, McGuire broached the idea of a soccer stadium anchoring a new development at the Snelling and University site. Coleman said McGuire was “very enthusiastic and very supportive of it. He understood the potential of the site.”
Coleman acknowledged the window in Minneapolis “clearly isn’t closed,” adding “there is plenty of potential there.”
Three Minneapolis City Council members did not return calls for comment Thursday.
But Coleman sees an opening to attract another major league sports franchise, joining the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, and the Snelling and University site meets the broader redevelopment goals for United’s ownership group, which includes Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and Twins owners in the Pohlad family.
State Rep. Rena Moran, DFL-St. Paul, called the site “barren.”
“We’ll see what kind of (tax) breaks they want, but I do believe it would bring us some economic development,” Moran said, adding that she’s open to feedback from business owners and residents.
SKEPTICISM
At St. Paul City Hall, several city council members have expressed skepticism that McGuire and his partners are serious about crossing the river.
Council President Russ Stark — who represents the neighborhood where the stadium would be located — said he needs to see what the entire public financing package looks like before offering a thumbs up or thumbs down.
“It’s got light-rail access. It’s got access to the freeway. It’s centrally located,” Stark said. “There really isn’t anything to react to at this point in terms of an idea and a proposal.
“We like bringing people to St. Paul,” he added. “To me, any deal would have to have clear benefits to St. Paul and our community. My starting point is openness to the idea but skepticism about putting a lot of taxpayer money on the table.”
Jane Prince, a municipal land use attorney who works at Hamline University School of Law, called soccer “a world sport” and said the stadium would appeal to the increasing ethnic diversity in St. Paul and the neighborhood. But Prince, a Ward 7 city council candidate in the November election, said she’s opposed to any form of permanent property tax relief.
“The kind of support that I would be in favor of might be infrastructure improvements that would serve the whole city as well as the stadium,” she said. “I don’t know what else they’re considering, but I think it’s absolutely appropriate for Mayor Coleman to be reaching out.”
Rep. Alice Hausman, DFL-St. Paul, said she is not sure how seriously to take her city’s bid for the stadium.
“I do kind of suspiciously believe that the conversation with St. Paul really is just a leverage point,” she said.
Others are more enthusiastic. Observers have noted that the bus barn location has been off the tax rolls for decades, and whatever is built there likely will require some degree of public funding for environmental cleanup and road and sewer infrastructure, if not housing subsidies and green space.
“When people do things on Friday and Saturday nights, I would like to see people stay here in St. Paul. I would like to see them spend their money in St. Paul,” said Ryan Wilson, who runs a UPS store in a University Avenue strip mall near the bus barn site. “We need something to draw people to this area on the weekends.”
Rachel Stassen-Berger contributed to this report. Follow Andy Greder at twitter.com/AndyGreder. Follow Frederick Melo at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.
