Minneapolis decided to use most its $3.6 million in federal reconstruction money to fix up the Schubert Theater rather than to fund a solar energy project. The lone dissenter, council member Paul Ostrow, said the Schubert project won’t generate enough jobs. The $2 million that the city council voted for the Schubert will complete a $38 million moving and rehab budget, which includes $5 million from other city funding, $12 million in state bonding, and $2.5 million in planned county funding. The Strib’s Steve Brandt sums up:
The Shubert, which got all of the money it applied for [$2 million], will create 101 construction jobs and the equivalent of 41 full-time permanent jobs, 38 of them earmarked for applicants from low-income neighborhoods.
By contrast, a competing project to build a solar panel manufacturing facility in a low-income area of Minneapolis promised 360 jobs by 2011. But it is getting only $284,047 of a requested $1.2 million. Money to protect condemned and boarded-up properties by winterizing them also got only $200,000 of a requested $400,000.
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