Good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I am honored to be here with Craig Leopold to announce the city of St. Paul and the Minnesota Wild have reached a framework agreement to fund necessary renovations to three of our largest city-owned properties, the Grand Casino Arena, Roy Wilkins Auditorium, and River Center. When I ran for mayor, I promised to tackle the tough problems facing our city and to bridge the gaps that have slowed progress while being mindful of the growing property tax demands in our city that affect everyone, whether you rent or own. This framework represents a new sustainable approach to funding critical downtown infrastructure. This agreement will not raise property taxes. This is good. This is a good deal for our city. Soon after taking office, I brought stakeholders together to begin addressing the issue. Today's announcement is the result of the work and the and the furthest the city has moved in this process yet. This is proof positive that we can respond to a crisis and move our city forward at the same time. As we revitalize our city center, we need these key anchors to be modern, competitive, and ready to host events. The Grand Casino Arena, River Center, and Roy Wilkins Auditorium are vital gathering places for cultural events, conventions, and sports, and they drive economic activity across our state. From an investment perspective, upgrading the cityowned property sends a clear signal that St. Paul is open for business and ready for partnerships. This project will help attract additional investments, events, and visitors to our downtown, which in turn will expand our tax base. A key feature of the agreement is a dedicated fund for ongoing maintenance so that we won't need to return to the capital every decade for more funding. As a former legislator, I know how important that long-term stability is to in getting a deal across the finish line. I am an optimist and believe that where there is a will, there is a way. Open dialogue is crucial to how we get this ask across uh the finish line at the capital. My team and I have been talking to legislators throughout this process to make sure that we can include their perspectives in our negotiations. I'm committed to fighting for this deal and I look forward to talking to the legislature. I want to thank Craig for his commitment to downtown St. Paul and for negotiating in good faith. I will now turn the mic over to him for a few remarks before we take questions about the framework agreement. Craig, thank you, Mayor Her. It's good to be here with you. Good morning and thank you for joining us at Grand Casino Arena. First and foremost, I'd like to thank the mayor for her strong support of this project. In just a few short months, she's hit the ground running as an excellent excellent leader and a great partner. It's clear we share the same commitment to economic development and quality of life for downtown St. Paul, and we're excited to move forward. The arena complex, including Grand Casino Arena, River Center, and Roy Wilkins Auditorium, is the economic engine of our city. Every year, these facilities host over 400 events, attracting over 2.1 million visitors and generate $383 million in local economic activity. And each year, the facilities become more outdated and less competitive at attracting regional opportunities. Grand Casino Arena is beyond its planned competitive lifespan. Roy Wilkins is an auditorium is 94 years old built before the internet, before television or even FM radio. It's an exciting time in St. Paul right now. March is the busiest month for our capital city. These beloved city-owned facilities are hosting state high school sports, Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Frost, and soon Major League women's volleyball games, concerts, cultural events, and more. Keeping our communities vibrant. You can feel the energy on the street of St. Paul when our campus is busy. We need to keep these venues modern, safe, accessible, and upto-date for visitors from across the state and beyond. And that's why I am very proud to invest in this partnership with Mayor Her and the city of St. Paul. This agreement charts a strong path for our future shared investment into an upgraded arena complex. we can take the necessary steps to secure bill authors and make the ask of the si state of st of Minnesota to help secure this investment in downtown St. Paul's exciting new chapter. Thank you very much. >> Yeah, what we mean by that is that we actually have a signed deal between uh Craig and myself. Yeah, I I would also say that um mayor her is very well connected in the state legislature. So when when I hear the fact that we're further along, it's because the mayor has taken the time and made a lot of phone calls and visiting legislators and we're at a point that we have not been in the past. >> Yeah. So the state legislature is a place in which like dreams come true and it's also where dreams can go and die and you know we you have to make a strong case for it. I think that part of the problem in the past has been that there hasn't been the strongest case for it. It's really difficult to sell a deal to legislators when there's not actually one that has been signed by the parties. So I will say that that is what we're bringing into this that is different. But you know additionally on top of that like we really did scale this project so that it would meet the needs of what we wanted to do. And truthfully, you know that really understanding that this is, you know, this is a complex that hosts sports, but it's so much more than that. This at the end of the day is a city property and that the Wild have been gracious in being uh partners with us in leasing this property for and putting uh capital up front to renovate it, which means that, you know, we are true partners in taking care of this. But this is a state asset. It generates uh sales tax for the state and for the city, but portions of that sales tax also go to fund transportation and housing and also for the county. And so like I think that being able to show our partners because they have a huge load of work that they do up there and being able to show them very concretely why this is a benefit that this isn't just about city of St. Paul. This is about the revenues that are missing because we don't have the updated facilities. And so I think that that case and being able to share that very confidently is is a uh will uh take this project a long ways at the legislature. Yeah. So actually we're not raising the sales tax. So there's already a half cent sales tax that is currently now using to fund uh the this this complex. Now we're asking for an extension of that sales tax. So it's not a new sales tax. I think that um all of the pieces have to come together. We need to get an extension in the sales tax and then we need to be able to get the the third of the funding from the state legislature because the our third would come from our own um ability to bond at the city level and then the the wild will come with their piece of it. We would have twothirds of the project already. I think that hopefully the legislature will see the huge investment by the other parties. But we really do need the other pieces to come through in order for move forward. If either one of these do not come through, we'll have to go back to the drawing board and sort of figure out what our next steps will be. Uh I can talk a little bit about the the basic infrastructure. I'll let Craig answer the rest of it. So, like for example, if you've been in the in the River Center in the Royal Wilkins, so there's like the a basement part of it that we want to be because because as Craig mentioned, that building is almost hundred years old that we want to be able to build the infrastructure underneath it so that to uh to uh renovate that piece of it so that then when we do the additional um uh second phase is so that we can actually work on the the uh the top part of the Roy Wilkins and that also then creates additional space uh that is connected to our um convention center, but also that we have to remember that when these buildings were built, you know, we uh have outdated HVAC systems that we have um you know, um our if you think about like even like our um uh escalators and ability to get people in and out that we do know that, you know, with things like COVID and needing to have updated HVAC systems, like those are things that we have to actually just do because they're decades years old. So, there's critical infrastructure within this building that people cannot see that we have to upgrade and uh put investments into that. But Craig, I don't know if there's other things. >> Yeah, that that's a good question because so many of the of the benefits of this uh financing um and remodeling are behind the walls. People don't see them. So um you know, all the safety issues that are now part of the normal protocol, they require different types of wiring and high def. So that takes all new wiring. Um we we mentioned our bathrooms. If anybody has been to one of our games, the lines go a 100red yards outside and um and it's outside the bathrooms and it's our fans. It's just not right there. And they see the other facilities in town and how updated they have become and they expect that we have that same kind of updates. So, um, there's a there's a lot of things. Most of it is behind the walls that you can't see. And really, that's why just to keep up with what everybody else is doing and make our fan and make this place into a facility that the city and our fans are proud of. Well, first of all, we will we will not be shutting down the building for any long period of time. So, we will not lose a hockey game in this building because of the renovation. It'll all be whenever we're not playing. We have hired uh where we have spoken with and uh have been working with uh Mortonson and they have been uh you know they have done projects like this where the sports team did not lose one game. So there likely will be in the summertime when most of this will happen. Um a very large part of the project is going to be on the north side on Fifth Street where we need more locker rooms and more things down in the event level which the artists and concerts and that's what they're looking for when they come to a market. they they need things that they didn't need and they need equipment and facilities they didn't need 26 years ago. So that's that's a lot of where the expense will go. People will notice that it's going to be new and beautiful. Uh but it's it's that's not really what it's all about, but we will make sure that people will be proud of what is built here. Can can I just add that I think we have to remember that there's actually three buildings in the three facilities in this building and so everything won't happen all at once that as we reconstruct there will be phases um like I you know the monk new year happens in the Roy Wilkins there's other there's graduations there are many ways in which the facility even if one part of it is shut down that there's opportunity to continue to have other pieces move forward I will say that in addition to what we talked about I think people think about when you're renovating is the cosmetics of it but I want to be very clear like if you look at like the safety right there are very few build few buildings that actually build all the way to the corner the way this is at at the corner of um 7th and Kellogg coming down here that it is very difficult for us to like for public safety we always have police have to be stationed when there is activities concerts games and so like there will be some of these things are for safety and for protection of people who come to use our facilities as well and I think I think everybody would agree that in this day and age that protecting people when they are out and about and wanting to just live their lives that is a really crucial part of why we have to do some of this work. >> So, um the the city uh will be put it's a so the the Roy Wilkins is uh about $150 million. So, it' be the Roy Wilkins and the convention center because we would refurbish the the bottom floor of the Roy Wilkins and make it part of the convention center. The the city is committing to financing half of that. they are going to be looking at a uh another private investor to come in for the other half. We are likely, we believe, I mean, we've been talking with the city about that. We haven't come to a firm agreement yet. And if we can't, then they would go outside to find somebody else who would who would take our place or at least make the other half of that commitment.