Also see: Minnesota United have released renderings of the stadium.

The Met Council is poised to take a major step Wednesday toward completing a $29 million, 52-year ground lease with the city of St. Paul that will put a professional soccer stadium at the blighted “bus barn” property near Snelling and University avenues.

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The Met Council votes Wednesday on whether to authorize staff to negotiate and then execute a ground lease with the city for the 10-acre property, which will be home to a 20,000-seat Major League Soccer stadium funded and constructed by Minnesota United. Renderings for the new stadium will be unveiled Wednesday.

Bill McGuire, owner of the Minnesota United, is intent on putting shovels in the ground this summer for the stadium in St. Paul’s Midway.

A draft of the ground lease will come before the St. Paul City Council on March 2 as an exhibit to the stadium development agreement.

The stadium will be oriented north-south, and the northern portion will sit outside the Met Council property. There is a plan to keep the northern edge off the tax rolls, city officials said.

“The team will purchase the land from RK Midway owner Rick Birdoff on both the northern and eastern edges of the bus barn land and give it to the city,” said mayoral spokeswoman Tonya Tennessen. “The stadium itself will be built by team owners and given to the city.”

McGuire would like construction to begin around June 1 and the team to occupy the site in 2018. For that to happen, the team is requesting three things from the state Legislature this session — a property tax exemption for the site, a sales tax exemption on construction materials and the rights to their own liquor license.



“The city has committed to seeking property tax exemption from the state Legislature for the stadium site,” Tennessen said. “Future developments on the bus barn site that aren’t soccer — like other private developments — will be taxable.”

THE $29 MILLION DEAL

Under the proposed lease terms, the Met Council will commit up to $4.5 million to clean the site of any pollution, though the exact amount will depend on any environmental grants received. From the stadium site, the Met Council will receive $556,620 annually in rent payments for 52 years, or $29 million.

That money will be paid by the city using proceeds from the team and stadium events.

“When you’ve got a 100-plus million-dollar stadium, they want to make sure they’ve got site control for that long,” said City Finance Director Todd Hurley.

The proposed agreement also allows “the (Met) council to exercise continuing control for transit purposes,” but it does not spell out details. “The transit elements on the site may incur costs for signage, ticket machines, etc. and will be procured according to policy. The specifics of the transit elements will be defined working with the design team over the next six months.”

The St. Paul Port Authority has been working with the city on the particulars, which involve keeping the Federal Transit Administration satisfied that the result will benefit their transit interests. The FTA helped the Met Council acquire the “bus barn” property decades ago. The Met Council staff report notes that the agreement will help generate a stream of revenue that can be used as transit program income.

“The FTA has given preliminary approval to the concept,” said Metro Transit spokesman Howie Padilla. “We’ll be keeping the FTA representatives updated as we go through the final process.”

The “bus barn” storage facility was torn down in 2002, and the site, used as a staging ground for buses and bus shelters needing repair, has sat mostly empty for the past 14 years. The staff report indicates that the stadium itself would be owned by the city of St. Paul and fit into a larger “mixed-use walkable development,” being designed by RK Midway with public input from a community advisory committee.

McGuire unveiled a 33-page master plan last week that outlined a series of public spaces, including four parks and plazas, on the entire 35-acre Snelling-Midway campus. The campus is being designed jointly by Minnesota United’s stadium architects, Populous, and a firm contracted by RK Midway, S9 Architects.

The community advisory committee will meet again from 4 to 6 p.m. March 3 at the former American Bank Building at Snelling and University avenues.

Design plans for the Snelling-Midway site will be showcased from 7 to 8:30 p.m. March 15 at the Buenger Education Center, 379 N. Syndicate St., Concordia University.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board on Monday announced the beginning of a 30-day public comment period on the 35-acre Snelling-Midway site. Comments explaining why an alternative development scenario would be environmentally better will be accepted through March 23.

The environmental attributes of the Snelling-Midway site are described at length in an environmental assessment worksheet.

CITY COUNCIL QUESTIONS

The stadium proposal might run into questions from the city council.

Council Member Jane Prince said she remains concerned that the city would be left footing the bill for millions of dollars of stadium-related infrastructure costs, such as streets and sidewalks.

There’s also the question of traffic impacts and parking concerns. A consultant is studying transportation issues for the city, but results aren’t due until at least April.

“We’re expected to vote on this in 10 days, and there has been no vetting in the media, there’s been no public hearing,” Prince said. “These things are usually talked about for maybe as much as a year, and we’re going to break ground in three months?”

Prince said she has too little information to make a vote.

“They want it all done before we go to the (legislative) session,” she said. “Why do we need to have it done before we go to the Legislature?”

Council Member Amy Brendmoen, who chairs the city’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority, said the city is working on a memorandum of understanding with the team but isn’t yet locked into anything.

“Until we get the property-tax exemption, we probably can’t execute a lease,” Brendmoen said.

She foresees the city helping with basic costs for the development of public streets such as an east-west extension of Shields Avenue, and the developer picking up costs for added amenities, such as above-standard lighting.

“Street infrastructure is something we’ve always understood we’d participate in,” Brendmoen said.

Council member Rebecca Noecker is working on a resolution that would block the city from offering RK Midway or another corporate partner any tax-based subsidies to pay for private development at the 35-acre Midway-Snelling campus, such as new retail and office buildings.

Noecker and Prince have expressed concern that the city is too quick to offer the private sector tax increment financing deals that effectively recycle property taxes generated by a private development back into the development.