Southwest Light Rail Transit line Comes up Short

Southwest Corriodor has come up short on the money needed to continue.

St. Paul gets $25 million grant for Saints ballpark

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) -

The St. Paul Saints were the big winners of Thursday's capital grants announced by Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton. The city of St. Paul was awarded $25 million of the $27 million it requested for a new Saints ballpark.

Nearly 100 applications were submitted, but only 11 were awarded a piece of the $47.5 million bonding money pool. Gov. Dayton had the final say in which projects would receive the legislature-approved funding.

MINNESOTA BONDING MONEY BREAKDOWN

• $2 million is better than nothing for the Southwest Light Rail Transit line. The Metropolitan Council applied for $14 million.
• Duluth was awarded $8.5 million for downtown development.
• A wellness center in Wadena received $4.2 million.
• Rochester, St. Cloud and Mankato were all shut out of the grant sweepstakes, but Dayton said projects in those cities will be at the top of his bonding proposal for 2013.
• Major repairs and reconstruction of Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis also failed to receive any funding.

Getting ahead of anticipated criticism, Dayton said there was definitely no deal to set aside grant money for a Saints stadium in exchange for St. Paul lawmakers' votes on a new Vikings stadium.