Fridley tries to jump to the head of line for transit sales tax funds

Fridley officials are hoping the new quarter-cent transit sales tax will be a lifeline for the city's proposed station on the Northstar commuter rail line.

This week, contractors will begin preparing the Fridley site for construction, which is scheduled to begin this month, even though the $10 million needed to build the station was left out of the state bonding bill this legislative session.

In the meantime, Fridley officials are urging Anoka County commissioners to put the station high on the list of projects competing for money from the sales tax. The Northstar line is set to open in late 2009, but the Fridley station was left out of federal funding for the project.

"We're going to be very eager to try to get some of the county's quarter-cent sales tax money for our site," said Fridley City Manager Bill Burns. "We think we should have a legitimate claim to some funding in the near future."

But Fridley will face tough competition from the other transit-related projects in the metro area to get some of the $100 million the tax is expected to raise by 2009.

Hennepin, Anoka, Ramsey, Washington and Dakota counties are instituting the tax, which will amount to a penny on a $4 purchase.

Commissioners from metro area counties and representatives from the Met Council met for the first time last week to start talking about how to structure the group that will distribute money from the new sales tax.

Many county commissioners are waiting to see whether the $70 million in state funding for the Central Corridor line connecting Minneapolis and St. Paul will be restored by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the state Legislature, Erhart said.

"If (the Central Corridor line) doesn't get the go-ahead from the state ... there would be more money that we could put toward things that are already a go, like the Fridley station," he said.

A big investment

Fridley has already committed millions of dollars to the station. The city recently made a deposit of almost $3.17 million for a 10-acre piece of land on the east side of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe tracks that the line will run on. The land was taken by condemnation, but the final purchase price will be decided by a court-appointed commission later this year.

A bill that was approved by the Legislature this session allowed the city to use money from three older tax-increment financing districts to pay for the land. Last fall, the city agreed to buy the land if the Anoka County Regional Railroad Authority would pay about $1.6 million for a tunnel to be built under the tracks. The tunnel construction is beginning at the end of the month.

"In an ideal world, we would get that money back," said Paul Bolin, a Fridley city employee who is working on the Northstar station. "The rail authority had the same intent, but it has become very clear that there is no way we are ever going to find $10 million."

Now the city and county are looking for between $5 million and $6 million to complete the station, he said.

"We need to look at the land purchase as the city's contribution," Bolin said. "Northstar is important enough to the city of Fridley, its residents and employers that if it takes a $3 million investment on our part to make it happen, we need to do it."