New Basketball Arena Discussion

[BikesOnFilm]

It's giving me flashbacks to Alex Duval's 80 story tower proposal - an architecture firm using a site with a lot of public attention to show off what they'd do with it so they can put flashy renderings on their website and get clients for other endeavors.

I would love if they took out that block near the train station and also Sneaky Pete's to keep the Timberwolves more or less right where they are today. But it absolutely doesn't fit with the narrative the team owners have said they want for the site, namely space for them to build entertainment and parking they can also profit from.

[MNdible]

Also, it literally doesn't fit on the site they're proposing, even if you knock down a bunch of buildings that have historic preservation protection. It somehow has even less accommodation for show load-in requirements than the existing Target Center. The whole plan doesn't make a bit of sense to anybody paying attention.

[HuskyGrad]

I would prefer that we don’t take out the few remaining examples of historical Hennepin Avenue.

[Nick]

Alex Duval's 80 story tower proposal

I completely forgot about this!!

[twincitizen]

I do appreciate the attempt at out-of-the-box thinking, prioritizing active street frontages, and doing everything possible to keep the arena within a few blocks of the current location. But this architect's thought experiment still doesn't produce a large enough site for a modern NBA arena which is reportedly 8-12 acres. Assuming there's some acceptance by the team owners and NBA for going below that for downtown arenas fully constrained by streets and buildings, around 6 acres is probably the minimum that anyone involved will accept. Two full downtown blocks and the vacated street between them is ~5.6 acres - anything less than that really isn't a serious attempt at creating a new site. There are some exceptions, like the City Center superblock at 5.75 acres where it could be done on one block, but that's assuming ~340' is even wide enough on the narrower side of the block.

The HERC site might be the only workable location that's somewhat integrated with the downtown street grid, aside from tearing down half of the convention center which I assume isn't on the table. A combined site of Target Center and Block E (1st Avenue vacated) would fit the bill, but I can't imagine displacing the Wolves & Lynx from both their arena AND practice facility for a minimum of two seasons is remotely acceptable.

Another wild card idea I came up with is the area just southwest of Target Field, assembling a site by tearing down the northern half of Ramp A, building over 394 and the Twins' parking lot there. This would require completely reworking how 10th Street and Glenwood/Twins Way all come through that area and intersect, but might not be impossible. Assuming the streets can be figured out without annihilating traffic & transit routes, this could produce a large enough site that's kitty-corner to the current arena. If Target Center is no longer there, 7th St could get straightened out or even curved the opposite way from how it is now, creating some space for a plaza / front lawn to the new arena site.

[rhettcarlson]

I continue to think about HERC being the perfect site.

The farmers market site satisfies the large acreage (11-13), blank slate requirement for an all-in-one entertainment district, like seems to be the pro sports trend. And I like the possibility of it drawing development west into one of the hard to develop, freeway armpits of downtown.

The HERC site can still do all of that, albeit to a lesser degree, but has the benefit of being better transit- and parking-connected to existing infrastructure (new skyways from the ABC ramps?). The Sharing & Caring, city Royalston facility and Mary's Place sites would seem to have the best redevelopment potential - maybe Arod's entertainment district goes there?

I think N 7th St has been a big mental and physical barrier, but he city has plans to reconstruct in 2028-2030: https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/download ... ercent.pdf

[StandishGuy]

Boo! This proposal seems very 1980s and 1990s Minneapolis- wipe out the urban fabric to build something new that will fail in 20- 30 years. The City literally paid $25 million in 1999 dollars to move the facade of the theater on the Block E site to become the facade of the now vacant Cowles Center for the Arts. If we need a two block site with a street running through it, let's tear down that awful Hennepin County Government Center tower and replace it and those bleak plazas whit the shiny new arena.

[thespeedmccool]

let's tear down that awful Hennepin County Government Center tower

You and I have very different ideas about what an awful tower looks like

But more importantly, I don't think any two-block site downtown is gonna cut it. Two blocks strung together are still probably too narrow for a modern NBA arena. Same reason this Warehouse District proposal probably can't work.

You're really looking for either an oddly large block (like maybe HERC or the StarTribune printing plant) or a square-ish set of four-ish blocks (like Royalston Station). Don't think two blocks will satisfy the new ownership.

[MNdible]

The City literally paid $25 million in 1999 dollars to move the facade of the theater on the Block E site to become the facade of the now vacant Cowles Center for the Arts.

Not to digress, but they moved the whole theater, minus the stage and fly loft, not just the facade. And they do have a new tenant ready to take over management and scheduling of the theater.

[SurlyLHT]

I think HERC might be a difficult option if the decommissioning process takes awhile.


What about on one of the 3 blocks between 5th St and 8th St between Portland and Park? The county already owns two of the blocks and from what I could tell HCMC isn't planning expansion there. It would be next door to both the Armory and US Bank Stadium and the parking and LRT infrastructure there. Maybe they could utilize the Common's park as well for events?

[Mdcastle]

I get the idea that people think we should be landfilling trash instead of using it to generate steam and electricity but I don't think we're going to be able to decomission HERC and build a new billionare palace there in the time frame that will satisfy the billionaires.

[mattaudio]

I also think the area just south of The Commons between The Armory and US Bank Stadium could work.

I was in Sacramento for a conference a few weeks ago and walked past Golden 1 Arena (less than a decade old) every day. Sacramento is a similar grid with ~400 ft blocks center-to-center. The arena footprint is about 550 x 500 ft and is sort of on a 2x2 superblock development, but weighted onto one oversized block. On one side, a pedestrianized K Street curves around the arena. One street is cut off through the superblock, and another tunnels underneath a pedestrianized plaza/K Street. The remaining superblock is sort of an outdoor mall/entertainment district including some hotels.

How could this be done in Minneapolis? Weight the bulk of the arena north of 6th St up against The Commnons. Ideally orient the bowl east-west and extend onto the old Medical Examiner's parcel and the barren concrete plaza where the Vikings put up their seasonal party building. This would require closure of Park Ave, probably fine.

Another idea is the arena shifting slightly west and bump up against The Armory. This would give it 100 ft between the Portland Ave ROW and the Armory side yard, and give a reason to close Portland through The Commons. But I wonder if there are historic preservation issues with the facade of the Armory (but hey, St. Paul has Roy Wilkins backing right into RiverCenter).

Being an important corridor between the core and I-94, a few lanes of 6th St could tunnel below grade from west of Portland to east of Chicago. The HCMC ramp and surface lot could make an ideal area for backend services for the arena, topped with redevelopment pads for the developers.

[BikesOnFilm]

I guess I just assumed we wouldn't consider a tunnel under a sporting arena because of security concerns, but then again, we let trains carrying who knows what go under Target Field so maybe that's not as big of an obstacle as I imagined it to be.

[minntransplant]

It's going to end up somewhere in the suburbs. As this discussion shows, there's no great options for the arena, let alone the "entertainment district" that is so desired. Add to that, do we have the political environment to support any stadium subsidy/financing in Minneapolis? I doubt it.

[mattaudio]

agreed, no to any subsidies.

[BikesOnFilm]

It's going to end up somewhere in the suburbs.

I really don't think so. If it was a baseball stadium we were talking about, maybe. A football stadium, almost certainly.

But the problem with the suburbs is it's really a pain to get from one quadrant of the suburbs to another. So by foregoing a centralized location in Minneapolis, the owners would have to weigh which suburbanites they are okay losing to a battle of "Do I want to sit in traffic to watch my team lose or not?" I like going to an occasional Wolves or Lynx game to hang out with friends, but if they moved to Eagan I probably would never go again.

The only suburban site that makes any kind of sense is Mall of America adjacent, and that sucks the wind out of the sails of owning an entertainment district when there's so much competition right next door.

As for the political will for subsidies, we've got a mayor whose entire future career depends on the next four years being a comeback story for our city, and he just got done demonstrating just how much of an enormous amount of sway he has over MSP's major property owners, media, and power brokers. At this point, I'm going to bet on him getting his way on this, whether it takes a subsidy or not, for better or worse.