Field of Schemes
sports stadium news and analysis

  

This is an archived version of a Field of Schemes article. Comments on this page are closed. To find the current version of the article with updated comments, click here.

May 06, 2011

Vikings stadium: The dome or the dump

Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located, has pulled itself out of the running to be the home of a new Minnesota Vikings stadium, with county board chair Mike Opat writing to Gov. Mark Dayton, "In this time of severe cuts proposed to local governments and to the services we provide, it is too burdensome for Hennepin County to act as a local partner for the Vikings stadium."

That doesn't take Minneapolis entirely out of the picture, but it does seemingly knock out the site near Target Field that some business leaders were trying to push, since Minneapolis officials are focused on a stadium on the site of the Metrodome. But don't forget that Minneapolis voters passed a $10 million cap on city funding for any stadium way back in 1997; that would either have to be repealed (difficult) or gotten around (also difficult) to make any city-funded deal work. Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak seems to be in favor of the "wave your hands really fast and hope a solution emerges out of thin air" strategy: His spokesperson John Stiles told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the there are "a lot of different ways you could get a local partner done. It wouldn't have to be just one. ... I don't know that the final resolution would include a three-way split." Not like there's a bill in the legislature that would require a three-way split or anything.

That seems to leave only Ramsey County, home of the Arden Hills ammo plant site. And, in fact, Ramsey County Commissioner Rafael Ortega told the St. Paul Pioneer Press yesterday that the county is "very, very close" to an agreement with the Vikings, though he didn't provide any details of what an agreement would look like.

Of course, that would still leave getting a bill through the state legislature, which adjourns two weeks from Monday. Not that that's impossible, just very, very improbable.

Latest News Items

CONTACT US FOR AD RATES