Star Tribune
Richfield school board grants Best Buy’s request to lower property taxes
Richfield’s school board approved a measure Monday night that could lower Best Buy’s property taxes in 2025 and allow the district to accept one-time money from the company to offset the impact.
Best Buy sought to end a “minimum valuation” agreement that set a floor for the assessed value of its Richfield headquarters at $118.5 million. The company believes the offices are now worth tens of millions of dollars less and want to pay taxes on a lower value. The city of Richfield and Hennepin County had already signed off on the agreement, but the company needed approval from the school board before the deal was done.
Richfield school Superintendent Steven Unowsky said during Monday’s board meeting it was critical that Best Buy would make sure the school district would not lose funding and that school taxes would not rise because of the company’s moves.
“If Best Buy were to reduce their property value, the impact on property taxpayers would grow,” Unowsky said. “Raising taxes on everyone but Best Buy was seen as an unacceptable outcome.”
He and the school board members said Best Buy’s request to end the minimum valuation agreement was acceptable only if students did not lose funds and taxpayers did not see higher bills.
The school district negotiated with Best Buy to get a one-time payment of $150,000 to the district, both to offset the lost tax revenue and the staff time spent dealing with the issue. If the difference in revenue for the school district is greater than $150,000, Best Buy is meant to reimburse the school district.
School board members said they were upset about changing the agreement but voted to approve a new assessment for Best Buy because they believed students would not be hurt.
Best Buy built its headquarters in the early 2000s for $300 million, according to Star Tribune archives, including public subsidies worth more than $59 million.
The minimum-value agreement was meant to shield the city from risk by making sure the it would always have enough income from the tax-increment financing district to make payments on the bonds that funded the subsidies. The bonds will be fully paid in February, so Best Buy argues its obligations to the city will have been met.
The company says it wants to rent out vacant space in the cavernous building, but argues high taxes are preventing it from offering competitive rates amid a glut of office space in the Twin Cities.
Best Buy officials have told Richfield the property may be worth between $60 million and $81.5 million because it is so empty.
Tracy Smith, Best Buy’s vice president and tax counsel, told the school board earlier this month that a recent estimate pegged the market value of the campus at $81.5 million, but over the summer told the city it could be worth as little as $60 million.
“Our Richfield campus today is half vacant,” she said.
Residents attending the board meeting were still upset about the development of the Best Buy headquarters, and its effect on the city.
Richfield resident Deb Nordmarken fought the deal 25 years ago, and said it still stings.
“We were so taken advantage of,” Nordmarken said, remembering how city leaders at the time brushed off residents’ concerns.
“It’s time to start making Best Buy pay their fair share,” Nordmarken said. “This is it. No more for Best Buy. Let’s be done.”
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
During Sunday’s Twitch stream, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez played Madden while discussing making homebuying more accessible, building affordable housing, eliminating student loan debt and raising the federal minimum wage.
After the match, Walz showed off his Sega skills in a round of “Crazy Taxi,” the Y2K-era racing game where gamers play as a taxi driver picking up passengers and taking them to their destination for cash.
Walz called himself a “first-generation gamer” and recalled playing “Crazy Taxi” when he bought a Sega Dreamcast. He also mentioned the Minnesota Star Tribune’s coverage of how his old game console was sold and ended up with a Plymouth resident, who still has it.
Afterward, Walz and Ocasio-Cortez watched a short clip of Trump denying on Rogan’s podcast that he lost the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won that year.
Ocasio-Cortez during the livestream also showed viewers her farm on the cozy, indie game Stardew Valley. Walz said the game reminded him of Minnesota: “You’ve got mining,” he said. “You’ve got agriculture. You’ve got snow.”
Before Walz headed out to a rally in Nevada, he pleaded with viewers to vote. More than 12,000 viewers tuned into the livestream on Ocasio-Cortez’s Twitch channel. More watched from Harris’ channel.
”Hey guys, they’re now scrambling and trying to call us Nazis and fascists,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s attorneys, who draped a sparkly ”MAGA” jacket over the lectern as she spoke. ”And you know what they’re claiming, guys? It’s very scary. They’re claiming we’re going to go after them and try and put them in jail. Well, ain’t that rich?”
Declared Hogan in his characteristic raspy growl: ”I don’t see no stinkin’ Nazis in here.”
Trump has denounced the four criminal indictments brought against him as politically motivated. He has ramped up his denunciations in recent weeks of ”enemies from within,” naming domestic political rivals, and suggested he would use the military to go after them. Harris, in turn, has called Trump a ”fascist.”
The arena was full hours before Trump was scheduled to speak. Outside the arena, the sidewalks were overflowing with Trump supporters in red ”Make America Great Again” hats. There was a heavy security presence. Streets were blocked off and access to Penn Station was restricted.
In the crowd was Philip D’Agostino, a longtime Trump backer from Queens, the borough where Trump grew up. The 64-year-old said it was appropriate for Trump to be speaking at a place bills itself as ”the world’s most famous arena.”
”It just goes to show ya that he has a bigger following of any man that has ever lived,” D’Agostino said.
