Key player on major Mpls. financial deals departs city

Above: Carpenter speaks to a City Council committee earlier this year.

Updated at 4:03 p.m.

A key City Hall player who helped orchestrate Minneapolis' recent high-profile financial deals, particularly the web of development in downtown east, will leave his post at the end of the month.

Chief Financial Officer Kevin Carpenter departs the city after four-and-a-half years in the role – a tenure marked by the Vikings stadium approval, the complex financing of a downtown east park and parking ramp, and a planned renovation of Target Center.

Carpenter said Friday that he is voluntarily resigning to "do some recalibrating on my work-life balance."

"It's out of whack for me. So I'm just resigning to take some time to think things through," Carpenter said. "I don't have another place that I'm going to right away."

Carpenter joined the city from the private sector, where he was largely involved in investment banking. He spent the bulk of his career at RBC Dain Rauscher, now known as RBC Wealth Management.

"Kevin was not just the CFO. Kevin was the fix it man," Goodman said. "Kevin was the problem solver on complicated development finance projects."

She said he almost always met her high standards for a city development subsidy, except for the Vikings stadium project. "And he would tell you [regarding the stadium] it wasn't his job to determine whether the project was good or bad, but to do right by the city," Goodman said. "Make it the best it could be for the city."

His city role frequently put him in the spotlight, whether he was explaining the precise cost of the city's long-term Vikings stadium contribution or signing off on a downtown park agreement that later drew scrutiny for ceding too much time for private uses.

The downtown east deal Carpenter oversaw was particularly complex, involving negotiations between the city, Ryan Companies, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority and the Vikings. Its success relies partly on parking revenues paying off the city's debt, which won't be known for several years.

That complexity made downtown east deal more palatable to the City Council than the Vikings stadium, however. It allowed the city to finance the development with the expectation of being repaid, while keeping the surrounding property on the tax rolls – unlike controversial tax increment financing.

Behind the scenes, Carpenter said he is proud of his department's work streamlining the annual budget process and making it more transparent.

He takes with him a lot of institutional knowledge, which he said his last few weeks have been focused on transferring to other staffers. His successor has not been named.