Metropolitan Sports Facilities Com'n v. County of Hennepin

• Decision Date: 03 April 1997
• Docket Number: No. C1-96-1270,C1-96-1270
• Citation: 561 N.W.2d 513
• Parties: METROPOLITAN SPORTS FACILITIES COMMISSION, Relator, v. COUNTY OF HENNEPIN, Respondent.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 513

561 N.W.2d 513

METROPOLITAN SPORTS FACILITIES COMMISSION, Relator, v. COUNTY OF HENNEPIN, Respondent.

No. C1-96-1270.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

April 3, 1997.

Syllabus by the Court

The lease of the Met Center parking lot to the Mall of America in November and December 1994 is tax-exempt.

The decision of the tax court is reversed.

Richard L. Evans, McGrann, Shea, Franzen, Carnival, Straughn, and Lamb, Chartered, Minneapolis, for relator.

Michael O. Freeman, Hennepin County Atty., Robert T. Rudy, Sr. Asst. County Atty., Minneapolis, for respondent.

Heard, considered and decided by the court en banc.

OPINION

GARDEBRING, Justice.

On writ of certiorari from the tax court, we are asked to determine whether a lease agreement between the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission and the Mall of America, for use of the Met Center parking lot in November and December 1994, is exempt from property taxes. We hold that the lease falls within the legislatively defined purposes for which the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission may use its property and is therefore a tax-exempt use of the Met Center property.

The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (the Commission) is a public body established by statute for the acquisition, disposition, ownership, operation, and improvement of sports facilities in the metropolitan area. Minn.Stat. §§ 473.551 to 473.599 (1996). The Commission owns property in the City of Bloomington known as the Met Center, which included a building that was operated as a sports facility until its demolition in December 1994. ¹ By that time the primary tenant of the building, the North Stars hockey team, had moved out of Minnesota, but throughout most of 1994 the Commission rented the building for ice skating shows, high school athletic events, and other incidental uses. Since early 1994, the Commission has actively pursued the sale of the property.

On November 18, 1994, the Commission entered into a parking agreement with the Mall of America, ² whereby the Mall was permitted to use 4,200 parking spaces on the Met Center property during November and December 1994 for holiday overflow parking. In exchange, the Mall paid the Commission $350,000. The parties agree that the purpose of entering into the lease was to offset the costs of holding the property pending its sale.

In early January 1995, the Commission received notice from Hennepin County of the County's intent to collect an amount equal to 30% of the rent from the lease "in lieu" of property taxes, based on its determination that the lease was not a tax-exempt use of the Met Center property.

The Commission refused to pay the tax, and instead filed a petition with the tax court. ³ The Commission challenged the tax assessment on the grounds that the Met Center property was exempt from any ad valorem taxes because the property was public property being used for a public purpose. See Minn.Stat. § 272.02, subd. 1(7) (1996). The Commission also challenged the means by which the County sought to impose the tax, arguing that the lease was exempt from ad valorem taxes because it was executed after July 1 of the tax year, Minn.Stat. § 272.02, subd. 4, and that the "in lieu of tax" provision of the property tax code, by which the County sought to get around this limitation, did not apply to this property. See Minn.Stat. § 272.68, subd. 3 (1996).

The matter was submitted to the tax court on stipulated facts. The court concluded that the lease was not a tax-exempt use of the property, and that the "in lieu of tax" provisions authorized the County to collect an amount equal to 30% of the rent. We reverse.

The answer to the question before us is found in the statutes establishing and governing the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission. Questions of statutory construction are questions of law and are fully reviewable by an appellate court. Hibbing Educ. Ass'n v. Public Employment Relations Bd., 369 N.W.2d 527, 529 (Minn.1985). The application of law to stipulated facts is also a question of law, and thus fully reviewable by this court. Morton Bldgs., Inc. v. Commissioner of Revenue, 488 N.W.2d 254, 257 (Minn.1992).

In general, all real and personal property is subject to taxation. Minn.Stat. § 272.01, subd. 1 (1996). However, public property used exclusively for any public purpose is exempt from taxation. Minn.Stat. § 272.02, subd. 1(7). The Commission is a public body established for the acquisition, disposition, ownership, operation and improvement of sports facilities in the metropolitan area. Minn.Stat. §§ 473.551 to 473.599. The legislature has declared that Commission property is exempt from taxes as long as it is used for a proper purpose:

Any real or personal property acquired, owned, leased, controlled, used, or occupied by the commission for any of the purposes of sections 473.551 to 473.599 is declared to be acquired, owned, leased, controlled, used and occupied for public, governmental, and municipal purposes, and shall be exempt from ad valorem taxation by the state or any political subdivision of the state * * *.

Minn.Stat. § 473.556, subd. 4 (1996). If the Commission leases the Met Center property to another party, however, the property's tax exemption is subject to an examination of the purpose of the lease, as follows:

The provisions of this subdivision, insofar as they require exemption or special treatment, shall not apply to any real property comprising the met center which is leased by the commission for residential, business, or commercial development or other purposes different from those contemplated in sections 473.551 to 473.599.

Id. (emphasis added). Thus, the tax exemption is lost if the property at issue is leased for development or for purposes inconsistent with those authorized by the Commission's enabling legislation.

The agreement in question here leased the Met Center property to the Mall of America for overflow parking during the Christmas shopping season of 1994. The tax court concluded, and both parties agree, that the lease was not for "residential, business, or commercial development." Thus, the critical question is whether this lease for retail parking was a lease for a purpose "different from those contemplated in sections 473.551 to 473.599."

The County urges us to look only at the statement of the legislative purpose in forming the Commission to determine whether the lease was a use of the Commission's property for a purpose "different from those contemplated in sections 473.551 to 473.599." That legislative purpose is set forth in section 473.552; it states that the Commission is established to meet the need of the metropolitan area for sports facilities, which cannot be met by individual municipalities acting alone, nor by private enterprise. Because parking for the Mall of America has nothing to do with sports activities in the metropolitan area, the County argues, the lease does not fit within the legislative purpose.

We agree with the County that a reasonable public policy choice might be to limit the Commission's tax-exempt status to the actual operation of sports facilities, but that is not the choice made by the legislature and that is not what the statute dictates. The Commission's enabling statute, sections 473.551 to 473.599, grants to it the power to manage and use its property in a variety of ways. It may acquire property. Minn.Stat. § 473.556, subd. 3. It may dispose of property. Id., subd. 6. It may operate sports facilities on its property. Id., subd. 5 (emphasis added). And, in addition, it is authorized to conduct a wide variety of other activities on its property, including entering into use agreements that "will provide athletic, educational, cultural, commercial or other entertainment, instruction, or activity for the citizens of the metropolitan area." Id., subd. 12. Quite simply, the tax exemption is not limited to the legislative purpose as stated in section 473.552, but extends to uses of Commission property "for any of the purposes of sections 473.551 to 473.599." Minn.Stat. § 473.556, subd. 4 (emphasis added). The lease at issue here was an agreement that provided for overflow holiday parking for the Mall of America, an entertainment and retail complex, and therefore, we conclude that the lease was for a "commercial or other entertainment" activity. Based on a reading of the plain language of the statute, the lease falls within the purposes for which the Commission may use its land, and it is therefore exempt from property taxes under section 473.556, subd. 4.

Moreover, we are concerned that the narrow reading of the exemption urged by the County would lead to the result that all use agreements for Commission property would be taxable, for how would we distinguish between this lease allowing use of the property for a "commercial or other entertainment" activity and those involving an ice skating show, a car show and sale, or a trade show? There is nothing in the statutes to indicate that these latter use agreements are not tax-exempt uses of Commission property.

To this the County responds that it is the operation of the Met Center building itself as a sports facility that provides a basis for distinguishing this use agreement from others. That is, as long as there is a sports facility on the property, other non-sports uses are tax-exempt. We are not persuaded by this argument because we see nothing in sections 473.551 to 473.599 that limits the tax exemption to a Commission building that serves as a "sports facility" or to periods during which such a building exists on the property. ⁴ Indeed, in 1994, after the North Stars had left Minnesota, the legislature acted to make clear the existence of a Commission building used as a sports facility was specifically not a pre-condition to its tax exempt status. At that time the legislature amended sections 473.551 to 473.599 to add a definition of the term "Met Center." " 'Met Center' means the real...