The Minnesota Wild have been trying to get the state to help them renovate the Xcel Energy Center for months, and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter hoped this year that state lawmakers would put $2 million in public money into initial design and planning work.

So far, the project has gotten nowhere, and Wild owner Craig Leipold — whose NHL team is Xcel Energy Center’s primary tenant from October to April — said this week its scope has gotten bigger. He’s now aiming to add a convention center hotel, which would be the largest hotel in downtown St. Paul.

Initial estimates for the remodel were in the $300 million range, with the Wild updating the loading docks and some priority seating, but Leipold said that budget projection has increased “because we’re talking about (doing) a lot more.”

“It’s very urgent. It’s time, and the window is right now,” Leipold said. “We can put Band-Aids on things and continue to do Band-Aids, or we do the whole project. The whole project is so great for downtown St. Paul, and it’s not just the Arena. It’s a new Roy Wilkins, an expanded convention center, a new parking ramp, and a convention hotel of 650 rooms.”

Leipold estimated the team’s contribution to any such project would be $200 million to $250 million.

“It’s a lot of stuff, so we think it’s great for downtown,” Leipold said. “It’s good for our fans, good for our market, and we’re pushing hard this year.”

The largest downtown hotel is the InterContinental Hotel, which has 410 rooms and is situated four blocks from the Xcel Center.

Visit St. Paul, the city’s tourism bureau, has long said that’s not enough to attract major conventions for 1,000 people when organizers want participants staying in the same building, rather than spread throughout multiple locations downtown. St. Paul has added a number of boutique hotels since 2016, but none approaching convention size. A 120-room Courtyard by Marriott opened at 150 Smith Ave. N., directly across from the Xcel Center, in the summer of 2023.

Minneapolis has three hotels that each span more than 500 rooms, with the largest — the Hilton Minneapolis on Marquette Avenue — hosting 826 rooms.

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