Port Authority staff gave commissioners a development roundup this week, reporting that the first phase of the Southtown Shopping Center redevelopment — anchored by a new Dick's House of Sport — will proceed without tax increment financing.
Staff reported Seagate is weighing a second Bloomington expansion competing against two other locations, with a state incentive package and a Minnesota Investment Fund application before council.
The city's prevailing-wage ordinance, in effect since June 27, 2024, kicks in on any construction project over $175,000 that draws on "City Funds" — a definition that explicitly includes tax increment financing, tax abatements and tax credits, alongside grants and loans.
Dick's House of Sport is planned as a two-level, roughly 120,000-square-foot store just east of the existing Kohl's, with an outdoor athletic field along Interstate 494. It's the leading edge of a longer-term, multi-phase overhaul of the shopping center by developer Kraus-Anderson.
Staff also told commissioners that Seagate Technology is weighing a second expansion of its Bloomington operations against two other locations under consideration. The company's Normandale-area campus already won city approval in June for a roughly 64,500-square-foot addition to boost wafer production for AI-driven data storage demand, and the city has been building a financial case to keep the newer expansion here too: a state incentive package and a pending application to the Minnesota Investment Fund, the state loan and grant program administered through the Department of Employment and Economic Development. The city held a public hearing on July 20 on an MIF application to help finance facility improvements, machinery and equipment for Seagate.
Staff rounded out the briefing with updates on new apartment projects moving through the pipeline elsewhere in the city, though details on those were thinner than the Southtown and Seagate items.