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Contact Information

Holly Masek

Port Authority Administrator
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Quick facts about the water park project

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If it is built in Bloomington, it will be bold and big – by Mayor Tim Busse

Why the City supports the MOA water park project

Hospitality and MOA in Bloomington make up more than 20% of City revenues, so helping Bloomington’s largest industry is important.

  • These projects help the other portions of the City because they bring revenue to the City’s general fund, which frees up General Fund money for other purposes.
  • When the hospitality industry is healthy, it offsets the expenses paid by all taxpayers in Bloomington. 
  • Without lodging and admissions sales taxes, the majority of which are paid by visitors, flowing to the City’s general fund, property taxes in the city would be much higher.

The investment of Tax Increment Financing or TIF into the MOA and waterpark is largely for infrastructure (mostly parking) that is shared among the many MOA components (retail, entertainment, office, hotel).

TIF can only be used for reinvestment in these MOA projects by state statute, and it is a portion of the property taxes that the MOA pays (and water park would pay)

  • The Minnesota Legislature has passed laws for reinvestment of MOA TIF for projects such as this and only for projects like this in the South Loop District like the water park or MOA expansion
  • The public funding being used for the water park are taxes  in the form of TIF paid by MOA and reinvested into the water park project.

In general about TIF:

  • TIF can be collected by a City, Port Authority, or Housing and Redevelopment Authority and used to reinvest TIF property taxes paid by the new project back to support that new project.
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