Vikings to Arden Hills? II -- Sid Stomps His Feet

Sid Hartman, the nonagenarian sports writer who has commanded a large chunk of the Star Tribune sports section since about the Benjamin Harrison administration, doesn't like the idea of Vikings moving to Arden Hills:

I can't get the least bit excited about the Arden Hills site, a location on the abandoned Army Ammunition Plant. It's a site that has so many infrastructure and soil problems that the cost will be prohibitive. There is one major benefit for the Vikings with the location in that the team would gain additional revenue from parking around the stadium, much more than it could at either the Metrodome or the Minneapolis Farmers Market.

Now, Sid's been grumpy since well before any of us were born, so you have to take this statement with at least two grains of salt. He's a company man and if the Vikings were to somehow find a way to stay near the Metrodome, it could potentially benefit his longtime employer, which owns a fair amount of real estate in the area. He's also a Minneapolis man and in the eternal struggle between the Mill City and the Capitol City, he cannot in good conscience support any advantage going to the hated rival to the east (and I don't mean the Packers).

Now, some of what Sid says is true -- there is no question that environmental abatement will be an issue in Arden Hills. And there's no question that infrastructure is an issue with the site right now. Neither of these problems are insurmountable, however.

What Sid doesn't tell you are the two reasons why the Vikings would be interested in moving to Arden Hills, which are:

1) In Ramsey County Commissioners Tony Bennett and Rafael Ortega, they've got two prime rube politicians who are more than willing to saddle their constituents with whatever debt is necessary to build the thing, thereby minimizing the out-of-pocket cost to the Wilf family, which owns the team; and

2) The Wilfs are real estate developers and there isn't a larger, better situated parcel of undeveloped land in the region than the site in Arden Hills. If they got control of the land, the Wilfs would build a lot more than a stadium and a parking lot on the site. There would be plenty of room for retail, other entertainment venues and, if they so chose, space to build a better practice facility and corporate campus than what they currently have in Eden Prairie.

It's pretty obvious why the Wilfs would be interested in the site. What's less obvious is why Ramsey County should want to dedicate a tax funding mechanism, essentially in perpetuity (does anyone really believe that a dedicated sales tax hike for a stadium would ever have a sunset provision?), to benefit a stammering dude from New Jersey. But that's another post.