The drive to bring major league baseball here in the 1950’s included the building of Metropolitan Stadium. The stadium financing was led by Minneapolis backers who located the stadium in Bloomington because land was inexpensive and the suburb was seen as neutral Twin Cities ground. About the time Metropolitan Stadium opened for the minor league Minneapolis Millers, St. Paul also built a new ballpark, Midway Stadium, that like its rival in Bloomington was expandable to major league seating capacity. Capitol city boosters hoped that it would one day be home to a Minnesota American or National league team.
By the late 1970s Met Stadium had unhappy tenants in both the Twins and Vikings. A site fight developed between those who campaigned to extensively remodel the Met versus boosters who wanted a domed stadium downtown. Eventually the Metrodome was approved with revenue bonds financing but not without a lot of controversy and hard feelings.
Timberwolves original owners Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner were courted by the Met Center, home of the NHL North Stars, but faced a directive from the NBA to have their expansion team play in a basketball-first arena. They used private money to build the Target Center and opened the facility in 1990. Since then the city of Minneapolis has taken over ownership and uses taxpayer money to help operate the facility.
When the Met Center was razed in 1994, the Twin Cities had only one major arena for awhile. But the Xcel Energy Center opened in 2000 and the downtown St. Paul facility has been battling Target Center for concerts and other attractions ever since.
Not only did St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman lead the political drive to bring the NHL to town with the expansion Wild, but he also courted the Twins and their stadium ambitions. What killed the plan, though, was a rejection by St. Paul voters to use part of the city sales tax to build a stadium.
A new home for the Twins was approved by the legislature in 2006 by dedicating a portion of Hennepin County’s sales tax for the construction of Target Field. Neither the county or Minneapolis (already with obligations including Target Field, Target Center and the Convention Center) is likely to step up as the “banker” for a Vikings stadium that will also receive financing from the franchise’s ownership group including Zygi Wilf.
And if Ramsey County residents are willing to pay more sales tax, that might deliver the Vikings to Arden Hills. Other funding options could include metro wide or state funding for a stadium with initially a no-site directive from the state legislature. The site to be determined later strategy was used back in the 1970s before the dome landed downtown.
Back to the future?