ST. PAUL - Building Trades representatives were out in force Wednesday as the proposed expansion of the Mall of America received its first public hearing at the Capitol.
The $1.8 billion expansion would more than double the size of the Bloomington mall, to 9.8 million square feet.
The expansion would be the largest commercial construction project ever in the state, said David Ybarra, business manager for the Minneapolis Building and Construction Trades Council. The expansion's benefits to construction workers include:
• 7,000 construction jobs over a 38-month period.
• 15 million construction work hours.
• $800 million in construction wages.
All these jobs will be covered by a project labor agreement, just as they were when the mall was first built in 1992, said mall attorney William Griffith. But the mall needs state financing to make the expansion happen, he said.
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