Vol. 22, #01 – 04/06/15


WINDOWS ON…

The Big IDEA

With rumors of Hennepin County considering using some of the surplus from the Target Field sales tax to assist with the proposed new Soccer Park on Royalston near the Minneapolis Farmers Market, perhaps it is time to peel back the curtain and shed light on stadium funding and management generally. Like the rest of the interested public we presume no deal is announced because no deal has been arranged. We know there is land to be assembled and infrastructure to be, well, structured to connect the soccer facility to the street grid, LRT and hopefully the HERC (aka Old Smokey, the happy garbage burner). It is public policy to connect the many underused public assets to potential development, ideally bringing the energy from the North Loop across / along Glenwood Avenue and into near North Minneapolis.

Coincidentally, across the street from the Government Center, leaders in Minneapolis City Hall are moving towards putting another, much-needed $24 million into the Target Center renovation. Wouldn’t it be nice if the City and the County could press pause and figure out how to manage these two efforts together? The City turns over title to Target Center, along with […]