Bonding & Infrastructure

For the 2019-2020 Biennium, Senator Hoffman authored and supported these projects to bring jobs to and enhance our community. While these bills have yet to pass, Senator Hoffman keeps working across the aisle to see these come to fruition:

• Champlin Mississippi Point Park: This bill would provide several million dollars to enhance our own Mississippi Point Park in Champlin, improving its facilities while making it more accessible to everyone in our community.

• Mississippi Gateway Regional Park: This expansion increases that accessibility so that people of all ages can be apart of the world around them and enjoy all of our wonderful river and the environment it provides.

• Enhancing the Coon Rapids Recycling Center: This gave funds to the Coon Rapids Recycling Center for expanding and improving the Coon Rapids Recycling Center, including constructing, furnishing, and equipping a building for polystyrene foam processing, a cold storage building, a covered storage area, and constructing driving lanes and parking areas.

• Anoka Ramsey Community College Campus Enhancements: Anoka Ramsey Community College has tried for years to replace their outdated Business and Nursing building to modify their facilities for more modern classrooms and curriculum. This will properly utilize the space they possess and create new opportunities for our developing students as they set their path into the world.

• Highway 10/169 and 3rd Lane Traffic Mitigation HWY 10: $72,000,000 would have been appropriated for a grant to Anoka County for environmental documentation, preliminary engineering, right-of-way acquisition, and final design for the interchanges on marked U.S. Highway 10/169 at County State-Aid Highway 56 as well as expanding the Hwy. 10 road along Coon Rapids.

For the 2017-2018 Biennium, Senator Hoffman worked on the following:

Highway 169 and 101st Ave Interchange

$4 million was allocated for the Highway 169 and 101st interchange project. This project stayed in throughout major changes from the first bonding bill that was voted down to the final bonding bill that passed. Senator Hoffman was the Chief author of this Bill in the Minnesota Senate. The land surrounding the intersection of Highway 169 and 101st Avenue has the potential to develop up to 20,000 jobs and is currently home to Target’s Northern Campus and their roughly 4,000 employees. The project will help prevent severe traffic congestion and public safety problems at Highway 169 and 101st Avenue North as well as Highway 610 and West Broadway Avenue. Total cost for the interchange project is $32 million.

Ramsey Boulevard Rail Grade Separation

Senator Hoffman, Senator Abeler, and Senator Newton were authors of this bill and pleased that it was included in the final bonding bill, after the first bonding bill failed, $2 million will be allocated to get the project started. An additional $3 million is needed to complete the project. This project is a MNDOT priority rail grade separation due to its safety concerns. The boulevard is so busy with commuters and weekend travelers going up north, it frequently is congested with traffic backing up to highway 10. Brockton Interchange: This interchange project will improve safety and emergency response, create jobs, reduce congestion on I-94 interchanges, prevent future congestion on local arterial, and reduce travel costs with convenient access. $13.5 million was included in the final bonding after the first bill was voted down.

Thurston Boulevard Interchange

$15 million was allocated for improvements to the Hwy. 10 Thurston Boulevard Interchange in Anoka County.

The Thurston Boulevard Interchange is important for the amount of traffic that goes through it. It serves US Hwy. 10 and 169 and carries Metro Freeway levels of traffic. This is true on both the weekday and weekends. Due to the westbound merger of the two highways the grade crossing has frequent mile long backups and results in delays and significantly higher crash rates than similar corridors.

The city of Anoka and MnDOT came to a plan they can both agree on after years of effort to find a solution. Most of the money to pay for reconstructing the intersection has already been committed, including significant contributions from the City and the County. The $15 million in the Bonding Bill represents nearly 50% of the balance needed to fully fund the project, bringing the improvement finally within reach.

This project was included in the final bonding bill but not the first one that failed.

Corridors of Commerce: The inclusion of $400 million in the bonding bill will directly affect us in the Northwest Metro, as this means the Highway 252 project is bumped up to the top of MNDOT’s priority list.

The Highway 252 project is a collaboration between Hennepin County, the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the cities of Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park and Minneapolis. They are developing solutions to lessen congestion and improve safety and reliability along Highway 252 between Highway 610 in Brooklyn Park and I-694 in Brooklyn Center and on I-94 from I-694 in Brooklyn Center to downtown Minneapolis. These solutions will be evaluated in an environmental process and then will move forward into preliminary design.

A number of important infrastructure and capital bonding projects have been secured as a result of Sen. Hoffman’s support. They include:

• Three million dollars for the nearly 80-year-old Elm Creek Dam at the Mill Pond project in Champlin, which passed in the 2014 Senate bonding bill. Sen. Hoffman also authored a bill to move this project into phase 2. The request is for a $3.3 million pond aquatic habitat restoration, which involves making enhancements to the area wetlands and restoring shallow and deep water habitats. The Mill Pond project is a first in the history of the City of Champlin regarding getting Bonding money for a project as stated in the Champlin Dayton Press.

• Eight million dollars for Highway 10, which also passed during the 2014 legislative session. This project is essential for economic development in the area and will solve a major public safety issue on this ‘gateway to the north’ highway.

• $1.244 million for renovations to the Brooklyn Park Armory in 2014

• 10.562 million in the 2014 bonding bill for the Minnesota Historical Society-run Oliver H. Kelley Farm – a working 1860’s farm which was granted its full request.

• In total, Sen. Hoffman helped secure $22.8 million in bonding for Senate District 36 during the 2014 legislative session. This money has helped create hundreds of jobs and has strengthened our local economy and paved the way for economic development we are currently seeing in our communities.

Bonding (2014)

• Hoffman supported a bill that maximizes the life-cycle of the state’s current assets (buildings/infrastructure). (HF 2490–2014, 5/16/2014; HF 1068–2014, 5/16/2014)

• Additionally, the money is used to ensure our higher educational institutions are state of the art so they can continue to attract the best and brightest students, as well as perform cutting edge research. (HF 2490–2014, 5/16/2014)