No Bonding Bill Leaves ‘Disappointment’ for Maple Grove, Plymouth
The Minnesota Legislature wrapped up its session this year in a fiery and chaotic fashion — and missed the deadline to pass a bonding bill.
To help pay for large capital projects, the state can borrow money by issuing bonds. The state legislature typically selects projects for funding during even-year sessions. Local governments, or other governmental agencies, can request bond funding for significant projects.
However, this year, late-night amendments meant that the bonding bill came to the Senate floor after the midnight deadline.
As a result, cities across the state — including Plymouth and Maple Grove — will go without the funding they requested from the state.
For officials like Dave Callister, Plymouth’s city manager, the key word was “disappointment.”
“I’m very disappointed that something didn’t get done,” he told CCX News on Monday, May 20. “I think there were a lot of good things for Plymouth and a lot of other parts of the state as a whole that were primed and ready to go, but when you wait until the last minute — which there’s a history of that — not everything gets done.”
Plymouth asked the legislature to help fund its so-called “City Center” project.
Broadly, the concept is to create a pedestrian-friendly downtown on Plymouth Boulevard.
It includes the construction of a new ice sheet, a public parking ramp and stormwater ponding that the city says would help spur development.
The city requested $32 million from the legislature to help make that vision a reality. That’s about half the total cost of the project.
Callister said the city was expecting to get about $3 million from the bonding bill.
Likewise, the city requested special tax increment financing legislation to help pay for the project. But that legislation did not pass.
Callister said the city plans to resubmit its requests during next year’s session.
An overhead view of the Maple Grove Community Center pool. The city requested $16 million in bonding funds to help revamp the community center. However, the legislature did not pass a bonding bill before the legislative session expired.
Maple Grove Requested Bonding for Community Center
The city of Maple Grove requested approximately $16 million for a revamp of the city’s community center.
However, without a bonding bill, Maple Grove Mayor Mark Steffenson said the city will be looking for ways to trim the project’s costs.
“What they have to do to get it passed is they have to work together, and apparently there wasn’t the working together that was necessary to get it passed, so that’s disappointing,” he said. “But that is typical.”
The project remains a priority for the city, Steffenson said.
Voters approved a half-cent sales tax hike for the project back in 2022. The city will continue to collect the revenue from that tax and use it for the project, Steffenson said.
He expects construction to start on the community center in spring 2025 or 2026.
