Downtown East inching toward approval; Wilfs back in court
Another day, another Minneapolis city council committee approval. The Community Development committee has now signed off on the $400 million deal to bring a home for thousands of Wells Fargo employees, 20,000 square feet of retail and 200 housing units to Downtown East.
Nick Woltman at Pioneer Press reports that the deal has one more stop, in front of the Ways and Means committee, today. That'll clear the way for a final approval for the deal on Friday.
The bottom line: the City of Minneapolis is going to issue $65 million in bonds through its Port Authority. Plans are for $20 million of the bond proceeds to go to the "urban park" planned west of the new Vikings stadium. About $33 million will go to pay for part of a $49 million, 1,610 space parking ramp for the new stadium.
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority will pay about $16 million for the parking ramp, and another $10.3 million for skyway connections to the Central Business District, through the Haaf parking ramp.
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The total public cost for the project, including the park, ramp and skyways is expected to total $84 million.
The Vikings, meanwhile, will be making their case in Morristown, N.J., before judge Deanne Wilson. The New Jersey Star-Ledger says a court hearing in their real estate dispute may run the rest of this week.
The Star Tribune's Corey Mitchell writes that Wilson's ready to reveal the Wilf's net worth, as she used it to calculate the $85 million in damages awarded to the Wilf's business partners.
Wilson ruled in August that the Wilfs cheated their partners in a 764-unit Rachel Gardens apartment complex. Wilson said they'd committed fraud, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty as they built and ran the operation.
The Wilfs lost an earlier appeal to keep their wealth secret.