The Wild and Saint Paul mayor are asking the Minnesota legislature for $200 million to renovate Grand Casino Arena, Roy Wilkins Auditorium and the River Centre.<\/p>\n
SAINT PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold and Saint Paul Mayor Kaohly Her announced a new $600 million plan to renovate Grand Casino Arena, Roy Wilkins Auditorium and the River Centre in a project they call \u201cCapital City Live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the Wild and the city are each investing $162.5 million to fund the first phase of the project and they are asking the Minnesota state legislature to chip in $200 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The city and a private partner will also invest $75 million to fund Phase 2 of the project, which will focus exclusively on Roy Wilkins Auditorium.<\/p>\n
Leipold says this will be his third time asking the Minnesota legislature for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really think we have the most momentum we have ever had,\u201d Leipold said.<\/p>\n
The renovation project includes new public gathering spaces, increased accessibility for visitors who have disabilities, and an indoor-outdoor patio, along with less glamorous upgrades behind the scenes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be things that we rely on like bathrooms, escalators, concourses, HVAC, internet systems,\u201d Leipold said.<\/p>\n
Saint Paul Mayor Kaoly Her says the project will not raise property taxes in the city, because the funding will come from an extension of the existing half-cent sales tax.<\/p>\n
The Wild is also prepared to cover the extra cost if the project goes over budget.<\/p>\n
Her says she has met with lawmakers several times this month to discuss the project and she is fairly confident the deal will go through.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, stuff happens at the 11th hour and something that was not breathing at all suddenly has life. So, I will say I am someone who believes in the Melissa Hortman strategy of being cautiously optimistic,\u201d Her said.<\/p>\n
During a press conference, Leipold was asked whether he would ever consider moving the team out of Saint Paul if a deal doesn\u2019t go through and he told reporters that it\u2019s not an option he is considering at this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no ‘Plan B’ in my thought process here. This is Plan A, Plan b, Plan C,\u201d Leipold explained.<\/p>\n
Mayor Her says she is preparing a possible \u201cPlan B” for the city in case the state funding doesn\u2019t come through, but she is not prepared to fully explain what a possible backup option would look like.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlan B is just for us thinking about what does financing of this look like and how do we move forward and what other options we might have. So, that\u2019s something we are exploring right now,\u201d Her said.<\/p>\n
Based on Her\u2019s comments during the press event Thursday morning, it doesn\u2019t seem like lowering the cost of the project is much of an option, because Her says the project has already been scaled down from around $1 billion to $600 million.<\/p>\n
The last day of the 2026 Minnesota Legislative Session is May 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Wild and Saint Paul mayor are asking the Minnesota legislature for $200 million to renovate Grand Casino…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,161,38,5280,4,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-554160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-minnesotawild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116417031414716147","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}