In downtown St. Paul, a major remodel of Grand Casino Arena, Roy Wilkins Auditorium and the adjoining RiverCentre convention center would cost $600 million, with funding potentially split between a $200 million request from the state Legislature and $162.5 million each from the city and the Minnesota Wild.

The remaining $75 million — for the Roy Wilkins Auditorium — would come from an as-yet-undetermined source.

The team, in turn, would agree to a lease extension, cementing its presence in downtown St. Paul past the expiration of the Wild’s current lease in 2035.

Mayor Kaohly Her and the Wild’s leadership were expected to announce those and other details Tuesday morning during a news conference downtown.

‘One of the largest city-owned assets’

Difficult discussions with lawmakers are yet to come.

The new framework agreement to fund renovations at the city’s 25-year-old sports, concert and convention venue relies heavily on state support, at a time when the state enjoys a budget surplus that could easily disappear in light of federal funding cuts and other uncertainty in the economy.

“Grand Casino Arena is one of the largest city-owned assets, and we are responsible for making sure it continues to anchor our downtown and economy,” said Her, in a written statement. “Now we will take this proposal to the Legislature and ask for their support. I look forward to that conversation.”

The mayor’s office noted the plan does not require raising city property taxes.

Instead, the city would draw its $162.5 million for the project from an extension of St. Paul’s existing half-cent sales tax, which already supports the arena, and the Wild would be responsible for any cost overruns on the overall project.

The framework agreement leaves $75 million as yet unaccounted for to fund the modernization of the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in a second phase of construction, though the city has indicated it would work with the Wild to figure out how to cover that remaining sum.

The split

Negotiations with the team began within weeks of Her winning an upset election last November, according to the mayor’s office, which released a statement indicating “both parties worked in good faith to craft a solution that balances the arena’s operational needs, maximizes efficient use of taxpayer dollars, avoids raising property taxes, and preserves and reinvests in one of the city’s largest publicly owned assets that generates millions in direct tax revenues and produces millions more in economic impact from users across the state and country.”

Here’s how the numbers break down:

The arena complex renovation and improvement project would cost a total of $600 million. That includes $450 million for Grand Casino Arena and a combined $150 million for the RiverCentre and Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

The agreement includes a $200 million request to state lawmakers, spanning $125 million for Grand Casino Arena and $75 million in total for the RiverCentre and Roy Wilkins Auditorium.

The city will finance $162.5 million for Grand Casino Arena using an extension of its longstanding half-cent sales tax, of which up to 40% can be dedicated to capital improvements at the arena complex.

The team would privately finance $162.5 million for Grand Casino Arena.

The city will work with the Wild as a preferred partner to fund the remaining $75 million for the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, the primary target of the renovation’s second phase.

The Wild will continue to be responsible for the ongoing management of the arena, and they’d agree to a lease extension. The team will pay ongoing rent and payment-in-lie-of-taxes payments for the use of the public facility.

“Both the city and the team are committing to significant ongoing asset preservation investments over the term of the lease,” reads the announcement from the mayor’s office.

Wild owner: Arena booked 150 nights a year

In a statement, Wild owner Craig Leipold noted the arena has been the Wild’s home since 2000, and is booked for events 150 nights per year, more than any other major venue in the state.

“Like any 25-year-old building, it’s ready for an update and we’re ready to invest – in the fan and visitor experience, in the event space, in safety and accessibility,” he said. “We are thrilled that Mayor Her shares our vision for creating an improved entertainment district in downtown St. Paul and is moving this project forward.”

Members of both political parties have cooled on the prospect of public funding for sports stadiums in light of other competing priorities, but the mayor’s office has emphasized that Grand Casino Arena hosts much more than professional sports.

The combined complex doubles as the city’s convention center, concert venue and a gathering place for state high school tournaments and cultural events such as Hmong New Year’s celebration.

Efforts for funding failed in 2025

Efforts to convince state lawmakers for major remodeling dollars for Grand Casino Arena were met with a cool audience a year ago when Leipold and then-Mayor Melvin Carter presented plans for a $769 million renovation, which would rely on nearly $400 million from state appropriations bonds.

With those discussions going nowhere, the city and team dropped the project to a $488 million upgrade, freezing planned improvements to the RiverCentre and the Roy Wilkins Auditorium, and lowered their ask to the state to $50 million. The smaller bonding request still did not move the needle.

The city’s attempt to secure $2 million in planning and pre-design funds from state lawmakers was unsuccessful in 2024.

On Friday, state economists forecast a $3.7 billion budget surplus for the 2026-2027 two-year budget cycle, though those numbers could change dramatically in light of federal funding cuts and other factors, such as the state of the overall economy. Gov. Tim Walz said Friday he expected to release a supplemental budget request and state bonding proposal within weeks.

Related Articles

MN Senate Republicans release tax relief proposals

Letters: I have 2 handguns, 3 shotguns, 2 rifles, and I support a ban on some weaponry

Sweeney’s Saloon offers free meal to legislators if DFLers and Republicans sit together

MN revenue forecast: $3.7B surplus for 2026-2027, a $377M surplus in 2028-2029

Gov. Tim Walz introduces anti-fraud package, calls federal Medicaid pause ‘illegal and unprecedented’

By JAMES ELLINGWORTH, AP Sports Writer

As a long jumper, Stef Reid never thought she’d need to learn how to land on ice. Now she’s part of a movement hoping to get figure skating into the Paralympics.

Skating sports are a big gap on the program when the Winter Paralympics start on Friday. Figure skaters with disabilities challenge the norm in a sport with often-fixed ideas about how a skater should look.

Related Articles

Tennis stars in Dubai and Paralympians face travel issues as Middle East war continues

US gold medal-winning captain Hilary Knight reveals she played at the Olympics with a torn MCL

Olympic success has led to surge in PWHL ticket sales

A golden sweep by Team USA in Olympic hockey led to celebrations that got complicated and political

Olympics stars Alysa Liu, Ilia Malinin and other Team USA skaters coming to St. Paul in May

Reid’s path to figure skating is unique. An amputee athlete who won three Paralympic medals in track and field, she was a familiar face on British TV. Being invited to appear on the 2022 series of a celebrity skating show, “Dancing On Ice,” still came as a shock.

“It had just never crossed my mind because it is probably one of the last sports you think about for somebody with a physical disability,” Reid tells the AP.

“Even if you are quote-unquote ‘able bodied,’ it’s still dangerous, and so it just never really occurred to me. But when they asked, I was like, ‘This is amazing.’”

R&D on the ice

Learning to skate meant Reid, who uses a prosthetic right leg after a boating accident at 15, had to find ways to train her hip muscles to do the jobs other skaters’ knees and ankles do. Her prosthetist developed a leg that would let her glide across the ice.

“Every day, every week it would be a new prototype which meant all the pressure points were different, and I basically was having to start over again,” she says.

“There was a very large period where we just thought, ‘Maybe this just isn’t going to work. Maybe this is a bit of a step too far,’ and then this amazing thing happened. After 10 weeks of being really bad, my brain just kind of kicked into gear.”

Reid built momentum and reached the quarterfinals of “Dancing On Ice” after weeks of live competition for a national audience.

Stef Reid, a former Paralympic athlete who now does figure skating, wears a specialized, custom-engineered prosthetic blade after competing in the British Adult Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield, England, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Skating and diversity

Since then, she’s become a leading competitor in Inclusive Skating, the main body trying to get figure skating Paralympic recognition, and competes at the British adult nationals alongside skaters who don’t have disabilities.

Olympic figure skating has gone through years of difficult conversations about diversity on the ice, or the lack of it, but Reid says she’s always felt welcome.

“No coach has ever been like, ‘No, I don’t want to coach somebody with a disability.’ It’s more like, ‘Oh gosh, I don’t know if I have the skillset,’” Reid says.

“As (coaches are) getting their confidence in terms of how to adapt and adjust, then it doesn’t matter what your disability is, they can teach anybody.”

Stef Reid, a former Paralympic athlete who now does figure skating, warms up before competing in the British Adult Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield, England, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Discrimination against skaters

Would-be skaters haven’t always been accepted, though.

“There’s been quite a lot of discrimination against skaters, both directly to me and also reported to the skaters,” says Margarita Sweeney-Baird, founder of Inclusive Skating.

“For example, ‘Skating is beautiful,’ therefore disability skating is not to be allowed because it’s not beautiful in this person’s eyes,” Sweeney-Baird recalls, along with simply: “’We don’t think that you should be on the ice with us.’”

A former champion skater and coach, Sweeney-Baird funded a trust to promote skating for people with disabilities in the 1990s. She was frustrated at the lack of progress and in the early 2010s decided to set up her own competitions. Among those who’ve benefited is Sweeney-Baird’s daughter Juliana, a keen skater who is visually impaired.

Stef Reid, a former Paralympic athlete who now does figure skating, competes in the British Adult Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield, England, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

A new way to compete

The Paralympics doesn’t yet have any “performance sports” based around artistry. Sweeney-Baird created her own judging system to reward skaters for what they can do, not deduct points for what they can’t.

Programs are shorter with limits on the number of jumps, because repeated landing on a prosthetic can be painful. Other events without jumps suit skaters with spinal conditions. Most skaters are women, and Inclusive Skating allows same-gender pairs to offer more chances to compete.

A collaboration with the Special Olympics offers skating events for athletes with intellectual disabilities, who haven’t always been accepted at the Paralympics.

Stef Reid, a former Paralympic athlete who now does figure skating, competes in the British Adult Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield, England, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

Why the Paralympics matter

Getting onto the Paralympic program would mean funding and recognition for skaters, Sweeney-Baird says.

New sports must show there’s a deep enough field of athletes from around the world. Sweeney-Baird says skating meets those targets.

Inclusive Skating is a relatively new organization but the Paralympics tend to expand gradually. The last time a new winter sport joined was snowboarding in 2014.

Figure skating would need the International Paralympic Committee to approve a range of conditions affecting how the sport is run, venues, costs and how to classify athletes’ disabilities.

“The IPC is always looking at ways for a diverse group of athletes to achieve excellence at the Paralympic Games, and our current strategic plan outlines an objective to explore ways to develop the Paralympic Winter Games,” the IPC told the AP in an emailed statement.

For now, the main way for skaters to spread the word is on social media.

Reid shares videos of her skating journey to more than 46,000 Instagram followers, and Inclusive Skating swaps coaching tips and competition dates. Innovations spread, too.

When she spoke to the AP in January, Reid was excited about a video she’d seen of an amputee skater who seemed to have controlled ankle movement in her prosthetic leg, opening up exciting new possibilities on the ice.

“I was like, ‘Whoa,’” Reed says. “I need to call her up and be like, ‘How did you guys achieve this?’”

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

Midway neighborhood advocates who have longed for the demolition of the derelict CVS Pharmacy building at Snelling and University avenues will finally get to see the structure fall before the proverbial wrecking ball next Monday morning.

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her plans to host a demolition watch party from the Spruce Tree Centre office building across the street, where she’ll be joined by representatives from the Midway Chamber of Commerce and others who have called for the CVS building to be taken down.

CVS closed at the location in 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis triggered widespread riots, and then reopened briefly before permanently shuttering in April 2022. The site attracted vandals and groups of as many as 40 loiterers at a time before its parking lot was fenced off.

It’s since been pointed to as a symbol of neglect and poor oversight, even entering as a topic of debate in last November’s mayor’s race, which saw Her unseat two-term incumbent Melvin Carter.

The seven-member city council ordered the demolition of the building on Nov. 5, the day after the election.

The demolition is scheduled to take place between 10 a.m. and noon.

Related Articles

Securian, Bush Foundation invest $30M in downtown St. Paul fund

St. Paul: Owner of Grand/Fairview site — former Grandview Grill — courts developers

St. Paul: A look at the report on Victoria Crossing mall

How is St. Paul’s Victoria Crossing mall on Grand Ave. eligible for TIF funding?

Downtown St. Paul: The man with a plan for U.S. Bank Center, other empty buildings

By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — Keir Starmer has never had a bad word to say in public about Donald Trump.

Related Articles

It’s election season again. This is why and how AP calls races across the country

Iranian Americans fear for relatives in their homeland as war continues

Noem blames ‘violent protesters’ for Minneapolis chaos under tough questioning in Senate hearing

Israel steps up airstrikes in Tehran, as Iran widens its response across the region

U.S. Embassy in Saudi capital hit by 2 drones on Tuesday, kingdom says

That is not being reciprocated now as the American president lambasts the British prime minister over his reluctance to join the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.

The dispute is roiling a relationship that Starmer worked hard to forge, and further straining trans-Atlantic ties frayed by Trump’s “America first” foreign policy and transactional approach to international relations.

“This was the most solid relationship of all. And now we have very strong relationships with other countries in Europe,” Trump told British tabloid The Sun in an interview published Tuesday.

“I mean, France has been great. They’ve all been great,” Trump said. “The U.K. has been much different from others.”

“It’s very sad to see that the relationship is obviously not what it was,” he said.

Starmer initially blocked American planes from using British bases for the attacks on Iran that started on Saturday. He later agreed to let the United States use bases in England and on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to strike Iran’s ballistic missiles and their storage sites, but not to hit other targets.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer issues a statement at 10 Downing Street, London, on the latest developments in the Middle East, Saturday Feb. 28, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/Pool via AP)

Even after the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus was hit by an Iran-made drone over the weekend, Starmer said that the United Kingdom “will not join offensive action.” He said Tuesday that a Royal Navy destroyer, HMS Dragon, and helicopters with counter-drone capabilities were being sent to the region as part of “defensive operations.”

The British leader has offered a rare, though implicit, rebuke of the U.S. president, saying Monday that the U.K. government doesn’t believe in “regime change from the skies.”

“Any U.K. actions must always have a lawful basis and a viable, thought-through plan,” Starmer told lawmakers in the House of Commons on Monday.

“President Trump has expressed his disagreement with our decision not to get involved in the initial strikes, but it is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interest,” Starmer added.

President Donald Trump speaks about Iran before a Medal of Honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Monday, March 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Financial Times called it Starmer’s “Love Actually moment” — a reference to the 2003 movie scene in which a British prime minister played by Hugh Grant stands up to a bullying U.S. president played by Billy Bob Thornton.

Friction between the two leaders has been building for months. Trump’s threat to take over Greenland was denounced by Starmer and other European leaders earlier this year. Recently, Trump has condemned Britain’s agreement to hand over the Chagos Islands, home to the Diego Garcia base, to Mauritius, despite his administration earlier backing the deal.

Peter Ricketts, a former head of the U.K. Foreign Office, told The Observer newspaper that under Trump, “the Americans have effectively given up on any effort to be consistent with international law.”

That is a red line for the law-abiding Starmer, a barrister and former chief prosecutor for England and Wales.

The spat is a setback for Starmer’s efforts to woo Trump since the president’s return to office in 2025. The British government rolled out the red carpet to the president for a state visit as the guest of King Charles III, and Starmer consistently has praised Trump’s efforts — so far unsuccessful — to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Iran war has also divided European leaders, who fall along a spectrum from condemnation to support.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that he unreservedly approves of Trump’s decision to attack Iran and kill its supreme leader, and called the war crucial for Europe’s security.

The U.K., France and Germany jointly said that they weren’t involved in the strikes, but were prepared to enable “necessary and proportionate defensive action to destroy Iran’s capability to fire missiles and drones at their source.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez condemned the strikes as “unjustifiable” and “dangerous.”

Polling suggests many Britons are skeptical of the U.S. justification for war. But politicians to the right of Starmer’s Labour Party slammed the prime minister for not joining the offensive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said that her party “stands behind America taking this necessary action against state-sponsored terror.”

Foreign Office Minister Stephen Doughty denied the U.S.-U.K. “special relationship” was on the ropes.

“Our relationship with the United States is strong,” he said Tuesday in the House of Commons. “It has endured, it continues to endure, and it will endure into the future on both the economic and the security fronts.”