City Council to discuss Operations Facility and License Center next steps
What's happening with Roseville's civic campus expansion project?
The City of Roseville is undertaking a civic campus expansion project to build a new Public Works & Parks Operations Facility* north of Woodhill Dr. on what is currently Veterans Park. In November, residents approved a half percent local sales tax to fund the project, with a 10 point margin of votes.
So what’s next?
City staff are working on preparing information for the City Council to be discussed at a Jan. 13 Council work session. According to City Manager Pat Trudgeon, the meeting will include the next steps on beginning the collection of sales tax, discussion on other options for the new license center, and engagement with the public. This public engagement will include working with the neighborhoods adjacent to the project site—the Veterans Park land—and the VFW.
In order to begin collecting sales tax, the City needs to notify the Minnesota Department of Revenue at least 90 days before the anticipated collection of the local sales tax and provide specific information about the project. This information includes such things as a resolution imposing the local tax, City Council minutes approving the resolution, an ordinance for sales and tax use regulations, referendum questions and results, documentation of public informational meetings prior to the referendum, as well as City Council meeting minutes approving the project plan.
The original draft plan involves tearing down the city-owned strip mall at Lexington and Woodhill to make space for the new Public Works & Parks Facility, which will displace the current tenants. The city-owned License & Passport Center is also housed in this building, so the City had hoped to pay for a new building for it with the sales tax too. But this ballot measure failed, with a 6.94 percent margin. The VFW will also be moving to a new building south of Woodhill, a collaborative effort between the VFW and the City that won’t be funded with this sales tax.
“With that timeline in mind, the earliest Roseville could start collecting the local sales tax is July 1, 2025. However, that date could be pushed back to October 1, 2025 if the City takes longer on working out the details of the overall project,” Trudgeon said.
Exactly when construction would actually start is dependent on how quickly the rest of the plans come together.
In an interview, Mayor Dan Roe said that City staff were ready for Council to review a resolution to start this process immediately after the election in November, but they directed staff to gather more information for Council to discuss in January instead.
“We need to have conversations first,” Roe said.
Since just one ballot measure was approved, and not the other, the path forward is less clear, because now the City needs to figure out what to do about the License & Passport Center. Where the License Center is relocated or how big the building is impacts how much the project is going to cost. That needs to be worked out before the City can decide how to pay for it, Roe said.
“Theoretically, I suppose, it wouldn’t have to move if we did something different with the maintenance facility, but because of the size of the outdoor storage space that’s needed and because of the size of the building that’s needed, it works a lot better to do all of that on the north side of Woodhill, rather than trying to split some things up,” Roe said.
The proposed new building, south of Woodhill, would have housed the License & Passport Center on the main level, and a second story above for park storage and the City’s dance studio.
“I’m trying to be open minded too. Maybe we re-use some existing buildings that are already on the site. Maybe we rebuild smaller or not have two-stories to save some costs. We might add some horizontal square footage instead,” Roe said, regarding the License Center possibilities.
So why did Question Two fail?
Roe’s sense, from talking with residents in person and on social media up to and immediately after the election, is that not everyone understood why a new License & Passport Center was needed or why the City required $12.7 million to build it.
“Maybe we should have flipped it around and called it, ‘dance studio and license center,’” Roe said.
Grant Determan, a Griggs Street homeowner directly adjacent to Veterans Park wonders whether the rejection of Question Two and the “fairly narrow yes vote on Question One” may indicate low enthusiasm for the project among the public.
“I still don't believe that the majority of voters felt there was an option where the building wasn't built so they chose the option that seemed cheaper to them personally,” said Determan.
Over 20,000 votes were cast in response to the two ballot questions as shown in the chart below. 11,263 votes were cast (55.12%) in favor of adding a sales tax to pay for the new Maintenance Facility, with 9,465 votes (46.63%) in favor of the sales tax being used to build a new License Center. (See election results here.)
For context, Roseville’s total voting-age population is roughly 30,000 people, according to 2020 Census Data. This includes any residents who may be non-citizens or otherwise not eligible to vote. The rest of Roseville’s population is made up of approximately 6,000 children under the age of 18.
The Griggs Street neighbors, as well as the VFW and other neighboring residents, have been invited to the Jan. 13 City Council work session. Determan plans to participate in the public comments.
“I hope to communicate that these decisions affect families and that we cannot be overlooked through this process now that they have a vote passed,” Determan said.
Marilyn Jacobson, another Griggs Street resident, also plans to attend the Jan. 13 meeting.
“Losing the park will either decrease the value of my property and/or decrease the ability to find a buyer,” she said. “Also the years of construction will be noisy and dusty. The noise of the equipment stored there will be considerable during the night in winter, and early morning year round.”
City Manager Trudgeon met with some of the residents of Griggs Street on Oct. 28 to hear their concerns. Determan said he appreciated that he took the time to meet with them, but is unconvinced that anything significant will come of it. Minor changes to the scope or timing of the project to lessen the impact may be on the table, but Determan said that without major changes to the scale and location, or a commitment to compensation for the loss in property values, he’s not feeling optimistic.
Further discussions
Now that the City has a plan for funding the Public Works & Parks Operations Facility, a final design will need to be developed and approved. This will happen in collaboration with outside consultant groups and contractors, and in conversation with the public. And decisions will need to be made about the location, design, and funding for the License & Passport Center too.
“I expect that the January 13th discussion will be the first of several City Council discussions about the project and what the next steps will be. I anticipate that we will begin to have a clearer schedule for the project after the January work session,” Trudgeon said.
The City must notify the public 60 days before the local tax starts by announcing on the City’s website the new tax rate, local tax notice, and a link to the Minnesota Department of Revenue.
All City Council meetings and work sessions are open to the public and include opportunity for public comment at Roseville City Hall. Meetings are also broadcast live online and on NineNorth channel 15. A recording will also be available on the City of Roseville’s YouTube channel.
*Editorial Note: For shorthand, the “Public Works & Parks Operations Facility” is sometimes referred to as the “Maintenance Facility” in this article. This is the same project and the terms are used interchangeably here and in City documents.
For more in this series on the civic campus expansion:
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
Naomi Krueger
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