7.3. SR 06-20-2005 - Laserfiche WebLink

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BNSF will manage advanced and final design of track and signal improvements on their infrastructure with oversight by the Northstar Project Office with the assistance of the L TK team. See section IX of this report for more details on the progress of this contract. VI. Twins Baseball Stadium Coordination Meeting Chuck Ballentine of Northstar member Hennepin County chaired a preliminary discussion at the Northstar Project Office on Tuesday, May 10 with staff from HOK, Twins Management, the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Met Council, and the Northstar Project Office. The purpose of the meeting entailed preliminary discussion of the location of the potential new baseball stadium and the coordination of the LRT alignment and platform where it would meet at the future location of the Inter-modal Station. The Minnesota Twins and Hennepin County have agreed to a funding plan for a new baseball stadium in downtown Minneapolis. The plan for the $478 million facility will include private funding from Twins owner Carl Pohlad and public money from the county in the form of a 0.15 % sales-tax increase. On Monday, April 25 the Twins chose to hold the official announcement of the stadium deal outdoors near the Metrodome's light-rail station. Team officials say they wanted to highlight how light rail and the proposed Northstar commuter rail lines will help bring fans to the new park. The Twins' ballpark plan took another step forward on Tuesday, May 10th with its first significant victory in the State Legislature. The House Governmental Operations and Veterans Affairs Committee approved by a vote of 17-5 the bill to authorize Hennepin County to levy a 0.15 percent countywide sales tax to construct a new ballpark. The bill now advances to the Local Government committee, which will meet to discuss the bill further. VII. Value Engineering The Project conducted a Value Engineering (VE) study on March 21-25,2005. The VE team identified 60 ideas of which 53 were developed into proposals. The collective impact of the proposals would total $19.6 million if all could be accepted. Proposals were grouped into four categories: Rail stations (17 proposals), Maintenance/operations facility (24), Track/signa1s/fleet/genera1 (5), and LR T (7). The Northstar Project Office reviewed the 53 proposals and made a recommendation to the Northstar Corridor Development Authority (NCDA) that 15 of these, totaling a potential savings of $7.4 million, be carried forward for further analysis. On May 5, 2005 the NCDA Board approved that recommendation. Northstar Corridor Monthly Report May 17,2005 7