List Members: Below is a fact sheet regarding the Park Board's decision to
purchase a headquarters building. Our email address is changing today, so
our network and email system will be out of commission after 2:00 pm. My
new email address as of Monday morning is
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Please feel free to contact me if you
have any questions.
Thanks,
Emily Jo Nancy Ero-Phillips
Manager, Public Information
Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board
400 South 4th Street Suite 220
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415
612-661-4874 (phone) 612-661-4777 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (at 9:00 am, Monday, August 19)
Fact Sheet
The purchase of land and existing building for Park Board headquarters
For the first time in its 120-year history, the Minneapolis Park &
Recreation Board (MPRB) is purchasing a building for its headquarters. On
August 7, 2002 the board of commissioners voted 8 to 0 to approve the
financing for the purchase and renovation of an existing building at 2117
West River Road North for the Park Board headquarters. The Board action
authorizes a loan of up to $1,050,000 from the Board's cash reserve funds
set aside for its self-insurance program and a mortgage of up to $3,100,000
for acquisition and rehabilitation costs. Mayor Rybak vetoed the board's
resolution on August 13, 2002. The Park Board overrode the Mayor's veto at
a special meeting on August 14, 2002.
The building is nearly 75,000 sq ft on about four acres of land along the
Mississippi River. It includes a surface parking lot for 200 cars. Two
Metro Transit bus routes (#14 on Washington/Broadway and #32 on
Washington/Lowry) are within 2 city blocks of the new headquarters building.
Currently the Park Board rents space for its headquarters in the Grain
Exchange building in downtown Minneapolis and provides parking in nearby
parking ramps. The current lease ends in May 2003.
The annual costs for rent and parking is currently $349,000. The landlord
has already stated that rent will increase in 2003 and it is anticipated
that the City will raise parking rates to generate additional revenue. The
costs for rental of space and parking are estimated to be $413,481 in 2003.
The Park Board currently leases 25,000 square feet of office space in the
Grain Exchange Building. The financing for the new headquarters will be
paid out of current annual rent for office space and parking costs in the
current downtown offices. The excess space in the newly rehabbed building
will be rented out, creating a revenue stream to reduce the Board's annual
building maintenance costs.
When the 20-year loan is paid off, the Park Board will own its own
headquarters building and have increased park system equity worth millions
of dollars for Minneapolis taxpayers. In the past 25 years, the Park Board
has spent 3.4 million on lease payments (for space in the Flour Exchange and
Grain Exchange) with no asset or equity to show for that expenditure.
Park Board staff estimated that is would cost $5 million to build a 30,000
sq ft building on the Parade Ice Garden parking lot site. Clearly the
purchase and rehabilitation of a much larger existing building is a better
long-term investment.
The Park Board has several buildings in Minneapolis where staff provide
support for the delivery of park programs and services. Some of those job
functions could be brought into the new headquarters.
* The northside maintenance facility at 44th & Emerson Avenue
North is already on the MPRB capital improvement program in the next two
years. It could be relocated to the first floor of the rehabbed office
space.
* The Southside Operations Center at 38th & Bryant Avenue
South is too small for the staff located there. As a result the Park Board
is renting office trailers for its environmental division at an annual cost
of $10,000.
* The City has recently asked the Park Board to remove its
archives now stored at City Hall.
The availability of this building is a rare and unique opportunity to locate
the park system headquarters on the historic Mississippi River in a fiscally
prudent way.
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