Senate panel alters U stadium plan

04/27/2006

Bill drops TCF name deal, raises cost to state

BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press

A Senate committee on Wednesday approved a plan to build a University of Minnesota football stadium that drops — perhaps only temporarily — a $35 million naming-rights deal with TCF Bank and a proposal for the state to pay the university $2 million a year to preserve a huge tract of land in Rosemount as a nature preserve.

The bill now goes to the Senate Taxes Committee, where Chairman Larry Pogemiller said he will propose a new statewide sports-related tax to pay the state’s share of building the Gophers stadium.

Under the Senate legislation, the university would be barred from imposing a planned $50-a-year fee on students to pay for the stadium.

As a result of dropping the TCF sponsorship and eliminating the fee, the state’s share of the stadium’s cost would be dramatically higher under the Senate legislation, compared with the bill the House passed last month.

The Senate bill would have the state paying $12.9 million a year for 25 years. The House bill calls for the state to pay $9.4 million a year.

University President Robert Bruininks said he was pleased the Senate Finance Committee approved the bill, but worried that the House and Senate would not reach a compromise between the $12.9 million and the $9.4 million payments.

“I’m hoping they’ll find a way to resolve these differences and submit a bill to the governor that he would sign,” Bruininks said.

Bruininks said he was concerned that Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who signed a 2002 campaign promise to veto any tax increase, would refuse to accept a tax for the stadium.

Pawlenty spokesman Brian McClung declined to comment Wednesday on Pogemiller’s tax proposal.

The stadium-funding proposal passed the Finance Committee on a voice vote. Several committee members who voted for the bill said they did so with the expectation that the cost to the state would come down and, in one case, that the nature-preserve transaction would be revived.

“If it comes to the floor at $12.9 million, I won’t support it,” said Sen. Thomas Neuville, R-Northfield.

Sen. Keith Langseth, DFL-Glyndon, said he saw no reason to reject the $35 million naming-rights deal with TCF Bank.

“I think we should take the money,” he said.

Pogemiller, DFL-Minneapolis, was one of two Senate sponsors of relatively similar Gophers stadium bills. Sen. Geoff Michel, R-Edina, sponsored the other. Leaders of the Senate Democratic-Farmer-Labor majority chose Pogemiller to be the lead sponsor of the stadium legislation.

Pogemiller, who said he found it unseemly for the university to sell the naming rights, refused to talk about the tax, except to say it might be a tax on sports memorabilia or perhaps a ticket tax at the stadium.

The on-campus stadium would cost $248 million and be built on a parking lot across Oak Street from Mariucci and Williams arenas on the university’s East Bank.

Under the Senate legislation, the state would pay about $173 million, and the university would pay the rest.

Senate President Jim Metzen, DFL-South St. Paul, stressed Wednesday that he wanted the nature preserve to be reinstated as part of the stadium deal. Other committee members repeatedly questioned whether the state would be left paying to clean up pollution on the 2,840-acre UMore Park in Rosemount that would become the nature preserve.

Under the proposed deal approved earlier in the House, the state would pay the university $2 million a year — money the university would apply toward the football stadium — for a promise that the university would never sell the land for residential, commercial or industrial development. The university would be allowed to continue using the property for 25 years, and at the end of that time, the state would have an option to buy the land for $1.

Neuville said the language on the nature preserve that was included in the House bill was “pretty one-sided” in favor of the university. University General Counsel Mark Rotenberg said university lawyers drafted the language, but he denied it would leave the state liable for pollution cleanup costs.

“The intent of the legislation was not intended, in any way, to foist on the state a pig in a poke,” Rotenberg said.