Saturday, May 14, 2011

Vikings to Arden Hills? VII -- Dead But Too Dumb to Lie Down

P. J. O'Rourke once described Communism as "dead, but too dumb to lie down." The phrase seems equally apt to describe the recent machinations of various people purporting to represent Minneapolis in the Vikings stadium debate.

The Star Tribune put together a handy compendium of the goings on in Friday's edition, but the key statement didn't come from local business leaders, or Mark Dayton, or anyone else. The statement came from Lester Bagley, who has been Zygi Wilf's point man on the matter:

"Twenty thousand cars added to the road system on Sunday [for a game] costs $175 million? It's easy to kill stuff, particularly on stadiums, [but] I'm not casting aspersions," Bagley said.

Actually, Bagley is casting aspersions, but he's being careful about it, because he needs to be for the moment. He's talking about some of the math that's been floating around concerning the infrastructure costs involved in the Arden Hills site. The Vikings don't believe that the costs are real and they have reason to be skeptical. The cost may be even higher, but I tend to doubt it. The entire cost of the 35W/62 reconstruction, a far more massive project than anything envisioned in Arden Hills, was $288 million. For another comparison, the current cost of the Central Corridor light rail project is $957 million and counting. And that number has more to do with the current debate than anyone in Minneapolis or St. Paul want to admit, but that's another post.

Of course, no one really knows what the costs would be. There are a number of road projects already in the works that will greatly affect the viability of the Arden Hills site, including work on the 35W/694 interchange that began last summer and will continue regardless of what happens with the Arden Hills site. MnDOT will reconstruct 694 east of 35W, including the notorious bottleneck at the interchange with Snelling Avenue and U.S. 10, in the next few years as well. These improvements are long overdue. As a practical matter, you could assign these costs to the stadium product, but they aren't really part of the project cost. The road improvements are simply the cudgel that politicians opposed to the Ramsey County site are using to pummel the proposal.

Meanwhile, the gang in Minneapolis doesn't seem to understand a few things. But never fear, they've written a letter. From the article:

The business community's letter to Dayton and legislators reiterated their strong support for the city's stadium proposal on the site of the Metrodome, where the team has played since 1982. The letter was being sent by Home Field Advantage, a business and civic coalition that successfully backed a new stadium for the Minnesota Twins in Minneapolis.



"The Minneapolis plan is real," said Sam Grabarski, president of the Downtown Council. "One has to wonder if the Legislature has time to understand and debate any proposal. We have to believe that common sense will prevail."
There's a lot of nonsense in those two paragraphs. Of course the Minneapolis business folks want the Vikings to stay downtown, but they aren't willing to pony up any money to do it. And Sam Grabarski is hallucinating if he thinks the Minneapolis plan is real. The cavalcade of taxes and user fees that the Minneapolis plan would impose has even less chance of getting through the legislature than what's currently on the table in Arden Hills. And the mention of Home Field Advantage's success in getting Target Field built is both a classic non-sequitur and specious. The reason the Twins have their new palace is that Mike Opat and the Hennepin County Board made it happen. But Opat isn't playing this time, because he's already tapped every potential revenue source available. Of course Minneapolis wants a new Vikings stadium, but the variety of governmental players can't afford to provide what Wilf can get elsewhere.

At bottom, there's a fundamental disconnect between the vision Wilf has and the vision of the New Urbanist swells who occupy our local governments. Zygi Wilf has been to Arlington, Texas and has seen the Xanadu that Jerry Jones occupies. He's also been to Glendale, Arizona and has seen the empire that Bill Bidwill occupies. He wants one, too. He'll front some money to get a similar palace, but he aims to get a return on his investment. Our benevolent overlords picture a stadium in which contented citizens politely step from their light rail platforms and file into the stadium. It's a tidy vision that has nothing to do with the nasty, tooth and claw world of NFL owners.

And I'll close this installment with another question for team Minneapolis. Let's assume that the various Minneapolis folks manage to scuttle the Arden Hills project, the project that reflects Zygi Wilf's vision and serves as the model he clearly wants for the team. What would be Wilf's incentive to break bread with people who couldn't be bothered to listen to what Wilf wanted when it mattered, threw out a ridiculous 11th-hour proposal via a slavering media and then refused to take no for an answer?

The Metrodome lease is up at the end of 2011. If I had to guess, the future of the Vikings in Minnesota will be decided in the next 9 days. The Vikings are being polite now, because they have to be. If the legislative session ends without an agreement, things change.

5 comments:

First Ringer said...

Great coverage, as always, but I have to mildly disagree that the Vikings' future will be decided in the next 9 days.

The Metrodome lease expires this year (and for the purposes of this argument, I'm assuming we don't need to worry about the gray area of a 2011/2012 postseason) but could be addressed in the 2012 session. If a stadium proposal is on the table come Jan/Feb '12, I doubt the NFL will allow the team to pick up and leave until the legislation has been exhausted - say May of 2012. And by that point, the team will have to sign at least a temporary extension of the lease to play out the 2012 season.

Worst case scenario the Wilfs go to the NFL during the 2012 Winter Meetings and get approval for re-location. That's no sure thing as you need 24 of the 32 owners to agree - to say nothing of an actual stadium being built and ready to house a team by 2013. Will such a stadium be completed by then? After all, it looked like the City of Industry had everything ready to go for a 75,000 seat stadium and the lot continues to sit vacant outside of LA. I have some doubts the Staples-adjacent proposal will be completed any faster.

If the Vikings really wanted to leverage their lease, they'd have already asked the NFL to approval a move. The only reason they don't, I can only assume, is that they don't think the NFL will allow them to do so (at least yet). Of course, such a proposal would doom the Wilf's chances of a new stadium here and essentially force their hand - either sell or move.

We've got at least another session, maybe even two or more, before this issue comes to a head. But it will and either we need to figure out the stadium situtation or find a new ownership group that will keep the Vikes in a sub-par business environment.

CousinDan 54915 said...

This whole story is a debacle. Shows what happens when you have a complete lack of leadership in your state house.

Mr. D said...

FR,

I think it's a lot closer than that. You say:

The Metrodome lease expires this year (and for the purposes of this argument, I'm assuming we don't need to worry about the gray area of a 2011/2012 postseason) but could be addressed in the 2012 session. If a stadium proposal is on the table come Jan/Feb '12, I doubt the NFL will allow the team to pick up and leave until the legislation has been exhausted - say May of 2012.

If Arden Hills gets shot down, what other Minnesota-based proposal do you suppose the Vikings would entertain? The only other entity that would have the wherewithal to give Zygi what he wants would be the tribe that runs Mystic Lake casino. Don't suspect that will fly with the NFL, either.

That's no sure thing as you need 24 of the 32 owners to agree - to say nothing of an actual stadium being built and ready to house a team by 2013. Will such a stadium be completed by then?

They don't have to go into a completed stadium, so long as they know that they get to take control of one down the line.

After all, it looked like the City of Industry had everything ready to go for a 75,000 seat stadium and the lot continues to sit vacant outside of LA. I have some doubts the Staples-adjacent proposal will be completed any faster.

True, but if the Vikings were planning a move to Los Angeles, they could easily cool their heels in either the Los Angeles Coliseum or the Rose Bowl until it is available. Or they could go someplace else entirely. The Tennessee Titans played for a few years in Memphis before their home in Nashville was complete.

We've got at least another session, maybe even two or more, before this issue comes to a head. But it will and either we need to figure out the stadium situtation or find a new ownership group that will keep the Vikes in a sub-par business environment.

That assumes the Wilfs would be willing to sell. I don't see any evidence of that.

jerrye92002 said...

I'm still missing something, perhaps because what I propose seems so obvious. Why not GIVE the Metrodome to the Vikings? They save $400 million and can use some of it to fix the place up. We save $600 million not building them a new place. They make a LOT more money not paying us lease costs, plus they get all the concession money PLUS the rental money for anything else that goes on there.

The alternative makes the Dome essentially a white elephant. It even looks like one. Why is nobody officially proposing this?

Mr. D said...

I'm still missing something, perhaps because what I propose seems so obvious. Why not GIVE the Metrodome to the Vikings? They save $400 million and can use some of it to fix the place up. We save $600 million not building them a new place. They make a LOT more money not paying us lease costs, plus they get all the concession money PLUS the rental money for anything else that goes on there.

Jerrye, your proposal would make perfect sense if the Vikings were actually interested in a true partnership with the people of Minnesota. They aren't. They are interested in making as much money as possible.

The proposal you're making would save the Vikings money in theory, but they would have the responsibility of ownership and the associated costs of ownership of a 30-year old building. "Fixing it up" really can't be done, because it was built much differently than more modern facilities. They can't turn the limited skyboxes into the sorts of pleasure palaces that corporate clients expect. And they wouldn't control the revenue outside of the building.

To give the Vikings the equivalent of what the Vikings would get out of the Arden Hills deal, you'd need to give them not just the dome, but about 5 or 6 city blocks surrounding the stadium. You'd then have to build ramps for them on those lots that would hold the equivalent number of cars. You'd also have to let them build other retail shops, hotels and other things.

If you gave the Vikings the Metrodome, they could make a tidy profit. If they get the land in Arden Hills, they can make a lot more, with far less of the headaches of day-to-day management.

What the Vikings want isn't rational. But someone will give it to them. Ramsey County has offered to give it to them. Someone else will give it to them as well. At this point, the Vikings don't have to settle for anything less than everything they want.