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ROCHESTER, Minn.- Rep. Kim Hicks (DFL) has announced plans to introduce new legislation in 2026 if the City of Rochester won’t reconsider its current plans for a new sports complex on 45th Street Southeast.
Her main concern is that the project has been separated into two phases after going over budget, putting off certain elements such as an indoor gym space and basketball court, that she claims were used to convince her constituents to vote for it in 2023 referendum.
The project was authorized for $65 million by the state, but the total cost of the plans exceeded that budget by an estimate of $40 to $60 million.
“If you were building a house and you told them your vision and they told you it was going to cost x amount of dollars and then they came back and said that’s going to cost twice as much money, would your response be, oh guess I’m going to just build a garage,” Rep. Hicks said.
The project was one of four items the city asked the legislature for local sales tax funding for in 2023 including an economic vitality fund ($50 million), flood control and water quality projects ($40 million) and street repair ($50 million).
She says if the city doesn’t reconsider her new legislation would seek to clarify the language of that initial bill to require the features the city promised to the community.
Rochester’s Senator Carla Nelson (R), a former Senate tax chair, says that legislation may not work in practice after the funding was initially issued.
She says that the legislature approved a local sales tax extension with clear parameters in 2023, the city can’t rewrite it or reallocate those funds.
“The exact language that went before the legislature was these four projects for so much for each, and that’s what passed the legislature and that’s what voters voted on,” Sen. Nelson said.
Nelson says the city would have 3 options if it wanted to seek further funding: raising it within the community, scaling back the scope of the project or revisiting the legislature to ask for additional sales tax funding.
But she says in order to receive more the city would have to prove it is for a regional project.
The first phase of the sports complex is set to focus on features that would promote local sports tournaments and tourism including 8 baseball diamonds, 12 pickleball courts and 2 multi-purpose fields.
She says with the funding saved on other infrastructure using local sales tax funding she hopes city staff will be able to find the money to fund the second phase of the project, but she’s not sure Rep. Hicks legislation is the right solution.
Under the city’s current schedule, the first phase of the project is set to finalize its current design sometime between September and October and start construction in November.