Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Vikings to _______? II -- Landshark

Now that they've been effectively forced to seek a solution in Minneapolis, the Vikings are wandering the streets looking for a place for shelter:
Minneapolis and Minnesota Vikings officials said Monday they're scrutinizing a parcel of land next to the Metrodome in hopes of continuing to play at the old stadium while the new one is under construction.

Even as the owner of a major technology center on the site insisted that he's not selling, Vikings' Vice President Lester Bagley said they want to see whether building at the Dome location can be done without having to spend the $48 million it would cost for the team to play up to three seasons at the University of Minnesota.
Of course, one of the owners of the land has no interest in selling:

So far, Bagley said he hasn't seen "a viable proposal" that would allow the Vikings to build southeast of the Dome. That's partly due to Minneapolis entrepreneur Basant Kharbanda, who owns the 511 Building, a telecommunications center of high-tech firms that's considered the Twin Cities' portal to the Internet.

Kharbanda said Monday that he's not selling the property and that he would take the city to court if necessary to protect his high-tech tenants.

Relocating those firms, he said, "is not possible technically and would take too much money to do it. For that amount of money, the Vikings could refurbish TCF stadium and play there."
And if you think relocating tenants from a high-tech building would be expensive, imagine the cost of moving an electrical substation:
The city's analysis is planned for release later this week, Lutz said. But he said it was clear that the 511 Building and the other major building in the way, Xcel Energy's Elliot Park substation, "would be high-ticket items."

Xcel Energy officials met Friday with city officials to provide information on the substation, which supplies power to businesses and homes in the downtown area.

"At this point we haven't even started an analysis of what it would take [to move the substation] and what the impact could be. We haven't said it could or couldn't be moved. We'll do our part to accomplish that," said Xcel spokesman Tom Hoen.
Remember, the idea behind forcing the Vikings to concentrate on the Dome site is that it would supposedly be easier to get the bill done and get something, anything built. You have to wonder how much longer the Vikings, and the public for that matter, are going to be willing to put up with this charade.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

A little research and quick math says the Vikings could save or gain about $800 million if the State would just give them the Dome. Seems like that would buy a lot of parking spaces or Dome skyboxes.

J. Ewing

hawkeyedjb said...

Why not spend a whole lot of money to relocate the substation? Why not take a chance on mucking up a bunch of businesses? This is a football team we're talking about, not some useless civic trinket. Football is known to be the greatest economic engine on earth, and if we don't protect it, at the expense of all the other silly businesses, we're going to be just another Cold Cedar Rapids.

Mr. D said...

JE, the longer this goes on the more your scenario might appeal to some people. It just depends on whether any of the people reside in New Jersey.

Hawkeye, couldn't agree more. Without the Vikings, a Cold Cedar Rapids is the best case scenario. We could even be a Cold Maquoketa if we're not careful.