November 01, 2006

Vikes eyeing downtown stadium?

"Wilf still focused on stadium drive; Vikings owner keeps Anoka County at top of his potential sites" was the headline in yesterday's St. Paul Pioneer Press. Not if you believe tonight's Associated Press report, which says that team owner Zygi Wilf is "looking hard" at building a new stadium in downtown Minneapolis instead of in the 'burbs.

Mayor Tom Ryan of Blaine, where the Anoka County stadium was supposed to go, told the AP: "It's not real promising, I can tell you."

The AP notes that a downtown Minneapolis site would have drawbacks (high land cost) as well as advantages (good public transit, "could fit into ongoing redevelopment of the Metrodome area," whatever that's worth). It would also likely face severe funding problems, given that Minneapolis voters passed a referendum in 1997 banning the city from spending more than $10 million on a sports stadium, and that Hennepin County is already saddled with the sales-tax hike it handed to the Twins last spring. But as that great Midwestern philopher noted, it's always good to have leverage.