For the second year in a row, the Xcel Energy Center came out of the legislative session with nothing — a frustrating shut-out for both the Minnesota Wild and the St. Paul mayor’s office.
Since at least the fall of 2023, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold have discussed a sweeping remodel of the downtown Xcel Energy Center, the popular home of professional hockey in Minnesota, which also doubles as a celebrated concert hall.
Efforts to secure $2 million in planning and pre-design funds from state lawmakers were unsuccessful last year, and a much larger ask this March — about $395 million in state appropriations bonds — drew skepticism from key lawmakers, including state Rep. Maria Isa Perez-Vega, who represents the district.
Some lawmakers called the process unwieldly from start to finish, and questioned why the city requested the money in 2023, when a nearly $18 billion state budget surplus loomed large. The surplus is projected to dwindle to a shortfall by 2028-2029. The Xcel Energy Center remodel was the city’s priority legislative request, topping an expansive list of proposals that was not approved by the St. Paul City Council until March 26, or more than halfway through the legislative session.
A tough year
Even some supporters called the request large, late and messy.
“All of the above,” said state Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, who chairs the Senate Capital Investment Committee, on Wednesday. “We had a (projected budget) deficit this year. We just don’t have a Legislature right now that is very supportive of sports arenas.”
Pappas said she was willing to carry a bill that would extend the city’s existing half-cent sales tax — which currently funds St. Paul’s Neighborhood STAR and Cultural STAR grant programs, as well as basic maintenance at the X — to pay for some of the proposed arena improvements. To her knowledge, the proposal never found a House sponsor. Perez-Vega, a logical partner, was not on board.
“We had a small, $700 million bonding bill we didn’t even know if we were going to get passed. And the governor had big asks,” Pappas said. “He wanted a new Bureau of Criminal Apprehension building in Mankato. He wanted a new building for State Patrol. … He wanted 45% of the bonding bill to be asset preservation for the state buildings and higher ed.”
When Carter and Leipold presented their initial funding ask for the X to the House Capital Investment Committee on March 20, it was little more than a concept plan, as they had yet to secure a bill sponsor. Perez-Vega objected at the time to being surprised with such a large request in the “front yard of my community.”
“If this is the number one priority for the city that I love … I’d like to see more effort to deliver this information to my office,” Perez-Vega said, after listing a long line of competing St. Paul priorities, from homelessness to climate concerns, where tax dollars could be spent.
A pared down proposal
In early May, Carter and Leipold presented a new plan to lawmakers. The $769 million remodel of the Xcel Center would be pared down to a $488 million upgrade, freezing proposed improvements to the adjoining RiverCentre convention center complex and the Roy Wilkins Auditorium until an unspecified later date.
The funding request to lawmakers dropped from nearly $400 million in state bond funds to $50 million, with the team promising $238 million and any cost overruns. The city and potential partners, such as Ramsey County, would be on the hook for $200 million, though county officials at the time seemed non-committal.
Leipold said at the time the goal was to create a “modern, best-in-class” facility that keeps up with changing tastes of sports fans, with low-cost, lounge-style seating areas and other fresh amenities. Even in the plan’s trimmer version, the state’s contribution would have helped expand the north wall along Fifth Street to improve the northeast entrance security area, increase disability access, update restroom plumbing and reduce pedestrian congestion.
Calling the fate of downtown and the X closely linked, Carter wanted to see public-facing improvements that would better connect the arena to Seventh Street, Rice Park and the Landmark Center, creating a continuous entertainment district. Under the title “Project Wow,” the Wild attempted to draw the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame from Eveleth, Minn. to downtown St. Paul, an effort that drew mixed reaction from lawmakers.
Best path forward
The Xcel Energy Center, which opened in 2000, welcomed a million visitors to Wild and Frost hockey games, concerts, performances and other gatherings in the first three months of this year alone. The arena complex draws more than 2.1 million visitors and $383 million in spending annually, according to the city.
Pappas said she had been able to convince the city to stick to asking for appropriations bonds, which lawmakers consider and fund separately from general obligation bonds. In 2012, Gov. Mark Dayton linked funding for construction of U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, the home of the Minnesota Vikings, to electronic pull-tabs.
“The best path forward for the Xcel is appropriations bonds, with some kind of new funding source to pay off the debt,” Pappas said Wednesday. “I don’t know what that would be.”
“It would have been easier to consider this request in 2023, because we had that big surplus, and we had one-time money,” she added. “We have a lot of sports arenas that could be coming to the state for money, and I just don’t think legislators want to go there.”
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