The Blaine City Council approved financing April 6 for a $15 million parking ramp tied to the 105th Avenue redevelopment project, despite objections from three council members who warned the cost could fall on taxpayers if other revenue sources do not materialize.
The 4-3 vote advances a 600-stall ramp city officials said is necessary for the west side of the development. Mayor Tim Sanders and Council Members Jess Robertson, Chris Massoglia and Terra Fleming voted in favor of the property tax abatements. Council Members Tom Newland, Chris Ford and Leslie Larson voted against. On the same 4-3 vote, the Council also approved the sale of bonds for the abatements, subject to conditions tied to ramp construction.
City Manager Erik Thorvig said the ramp has been part of the broader redevelopment vision since the early planning stages, though its location changed as the west side of the district evolved.
He said the city began planning redevelopment of the 105th Avenue and Radisson Road area in 2021, selected Elevage/Bader as developer in 2022, and spent the following years assembling land, refining the master plan, funding infrastructure and demolition, and preparing the district for redevelopment. Progress in 2025 included new roads and utilities, demolition of existing buildings and identifying Scheels as an end user.
Thorvig said the lot is needed to ensure the functionality of the stadium and west portion of the district and to meet parking requirements for city approvals. Construction is slated to begin in 2026. The structure would include a ground retail component and an entertainment user above, while the city would own and ground lease the parking.
Debt service is estimated at about $1.265 million annually, with a first payment in 2028 projected at $432,000 and annual payments through 2047 projected at about $1.2 million. Possible repayment sources include excess district revenue, alternative revenue sources, an increase to the Economic Development Authority levy, the EDA strategic initiatives fund and the general levy.
Blaine resident Tim Davis criticized the proposal, he said that residents were not given the opportunity to vote.
“After you force the taxpayers to shoulder the cost to build it,” Davis said of the parking ramp, “we’re gonna have to pay to park there. So you’re literally asking us to pay for the bricks and then pay for the privilege of standing next to those bricks.”
Newland said he remains supportive of the overall redevelopment and the city’s existing commitment to it, but said the parking-ramp price had pushed the project beyond his comfort level.
“I am 100% in for what this development will do for the city, and for the commitments that I have made to come up with $183 million that we were in for thus far, I’m comfortable with that,” Newland said. “I knew that we were going to be looking towards a $7 million parking solution. This is now double that.”
Ford said the city had already pledged new property taxes generated from the development and other district revenue to pay for the stadium overpass, Scheels, the east ramp, roads and utilities, and had also said other revenue sources for the development had been exhausted for existing and proposed debt obligations.
“What that means to me is that the west ramp is not being paid for by growth, but is being added on top of everything else,” Ford said. “That debt has to go back to the citizens on their property taxes. And I am not willing to add that debt to citizens’ property taxes.”
Ford said the city would have to find the money for the ramp somewhere.
“When you’ve gotta make that money up, you either have to get it out of services, or you get it out of people,” Ford said. “And I’m not willing to do that either. And that’s why I’m voting no on this.”
He also said several possible revenue sources remain uncertain.
“And we’ve talked about entertainment district revenues that we don’t know if we’re going to get,” Ford said. “We talked about some franchise fees. We don’t know if that’s gonna happen. We talked about cannabis. We don’t know if that’s gonna happen.”
Larson said the concept of a ramp had been discussed for years, but the specific proposal had only been before the Council for a little over a month.
“We debate so many costs in this city, for months at times,” Larson said, “and yet this was just brought up a month and a half ago and now we’re suddenly voting on $15 million.”
Larson also said the city had already pointed to some of those same revenue options as tools to reduce property tax pressure.
“The reason we’re looking at franchise fees and cannabis is to get property taxes down,” Larson said. “This is what we’ve told the taxpayers. We owe it to the taxpayers, we are taxpayers ourselves. We owe it to everybody to get those property taxes down, and that’s why we’re looking at all those other sources.”
Thorvig said the city would determine the repayment source annually through the budget process using options that include excess district revenue, alternative revenue sources, an increase to the EDA levy, the EDA strategic initiatives fund and the general levy. He also said the city is not obliged to sell the bonds unless the approved parameters are met.
Supporters argued the ramp is necessary to make the broader west-side district work and said failing to approve it could jeopardize a redevelopment plan the city has spent years advancing.
Robertson said the city had made a commitment to residents to keep the broader project off the property tax levy and had done so. She also said the ramp would be public and that the city would not charge for it other than maybe at a special event, with revenue discussion centered on advertising.
“We sat in early budget conversations, and honestly I got really mad and then I felt badly about how mad I got, so I had to call and apologize to our finance director,” Robertson said. “We get property tax statements too. And my property taxes went up a boatload and I was really not happy about it.”
Robertson said the difficulty for the Council was that members were being asked to approve something they still could not fully see on the ground, even as construction was supposed to start this spring.
“And it’s not just one thing, it’s not just this parking structure with retail on it, it’s the entire district. It’s Scheels. It’s a hotel. It’s entertainment amenities. It’s a stadium. It’s updated…utilities and streets,” Robertson said.
Robertson hoped the city could still find ways to cut spending, but feared the project would grind to a halt without the ramp approval.
Fleming said the project was complex, but also a major opportunity. She said tourism already brings substantial traffic to the north metro and Blaine should position itself to capture more of that.
Massoglia said he was frustrated by colleagues raising concerns about the possibility of the ramp affecting the general levy now after supporting city budgets in past years that increased the levy. He said the city had worked hard to keep its participation in the redevelopment off the general levy and said the district would not work without enough parking.
“We have to make the district work,” Massoglia said. “Is there potential that this ends up back on the general tax levy? Yes. I’m not disagreeing with that. But it’s frustrating, as someone who has voted against the general tax levy increases, that now all of sudden there’s all this concern when we’ve been raising taxes on average 10% every year with no concern whatsoever.”