Minnesota Senate panel approves $77M Senate building

ST. PAUL -- The new, slimmed-down Senate office building project got the OK from the Senate Rules committee Monday, clearing the way for construction to potentially begin July 1.

Financing is being held up by an outstanding legal challenge, but Mondays approval was the last substantive authorization needed for the project.

Once the lawsuits resolved, the building will be ready for construction, said Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook.

He said hed like to start work on it before July 1 to reduce the risk of potential disruption to the related Capitol renovation process.

The office building project has been criticized by the minority Republican Party as being wasteful and insufficiently vetted, and Mondays vote to approve the plan was on a partisan 8-5 vote, with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor members in favor and Republicans opposed.

The Senate Rules Committee approved a building plan in January that was attacked as too lavish.

Last Friday, the House Rules committee endorsed a revised plan that increased the space in order to house all 67 senators and their staff members instead of just 44. But it reduced the overall project cost to the public in part by cutting an off-site parking ramp and making the on-site ramp user-financed.

The cost to taxpayers dropped from $94 million to $77 million. It was that new plan that the Senate Rules Committee approved Monday.

Senate Minority Leader David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, tried unsuccessfully Monday to table the issue, arguing it made no sense to approve a new design for the Senate office building without knowing what related changes would be made in other Capitol complex buildings.

Currently, DFL majority senators have offices in the Capitol, and Republican minority senators are housed across the street in the State Office Building. Might senators wind up with offices in more than one building, Hann asked?

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Minnesota Senate panel approves $77M Senate building