ST. PAUL – The sale of $85.4 million in state bonds was completed Tuesday, bringing closer groundbreaking on a controversial new Senate office complex in St. Paul.
The building and adjacent parking ramp is estimated to cost nearly $90 million. Taxpayers will fund approximately $77 million of the total cost.
Seeds for this project were planted in the 2013 Tax Bill. Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Lake Shore, and fellow House Republicans unanimously voted against that bill. Anderson has strongly opposed the Senate complex since Day 1.
“This Senate building is not based on need, it’s based on want and it’s frivolous,” Anderson said. “Democrats raised our taxes by around $2 billion and now are building themselves a new office. It is just another example of how easy it is for them to spend other people’s money.”
A number of the 67 Senators will be displaced during a massive restoration of the century-old state Capitol, an impetus for the new Senate facility. Work on the Capitol is scheduled for completion in 2017 and Anderson indicated more cost-effective alternatives were available to house Senators during the temporary disruption. He said St. Paul has plenty of empty offices where we could have relocated Senators for a couple of years before they could move back to the Capitol.
“This office complex is an unnecessary expense that taxpayers do not want,” Anderson said. “I have not heard from one constituent – not a single one – that says we should be building new offices for the Senate.”
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