New Basketball Arena Discussion

[BikesOnFilm]

Having someone else put a bunch of activity on Nicollet while removing a ton of the surplus vacant office would be something he'd love to ride the coattails of, but Frey wants a lot of things he's not going to get.

I did see a video the other day on how Japan demos buildings - they support the weight of the tower with hydraulics while they hollow out the first level, and then lower the building down to repeat the process floor by floor. I immediately thought of City Center, though I've been around long enough to know that while other countries might solve a problem, America often chooses to ignore solutions we didn't come up with ourselves.

The other thought I had was, if the security concerns of building an arena over the top of Nicollet were solvable, it would be a lot easier of a lift to tear down the City Center mall and the Gaviidae Mall across the street than it would be to demolish a tower.

Ultimately, I think after all the speculation, we will be completely unsurprised when the Farmer's Market site is chosen.

[mattaudio]

The other thought I had was, if the security concerns of building an arena over the top of Nicollet were solvable, it would be a lot easier of a lift to tear down the City Center mall and the Gaviidae Mall across the street than it would be to demolish a tower.

The K-Mart... or the Northwestern National Life building... of the 2020s.

[Icn]

The other thought I had was, if the security concerns of building an arena over the top of Nicollet were solvable, it would be a lot easier of a lift to tear down the City Center mall and the Gaviidae Mall across the street than it would be to demolish a tower.

The K-Mart... or the Northwestern National Life building... of the 2020s.

Agreed. I’m old enough to remember the proposal to enclose several blocks of Nicollet Mall and I’m so glad that proposal failed. We need to find a way to humanize Nicollet not further concretize and supersize it.

I don’t want to see another basketball arena built, but if the incinerator goes away, that would be the best location from an urban development, transit access perspective. Hope there would be strong opposition to displacement of the farmer’s market.

[BikesOnFilm]

Less like K-Mart, more like the Hennepin Government Center over 6th. But even that's probably too great a political lift.

[MinneapBliss]

My two pipe dream options are the GAF property in North (13 acres), just south of UHT park/amphitheater, and the Graco Campus in NE (almost 30 acres, so wouldn't need all of it). Two detractors that come to mind are the lack of LRT service, and (probably) a more vocal NIMBY movement. But those sites could be really cool with the river, skyline, and Lowry bridge backdrops, and I think the proximity to the river would make housing/entertainment development around a new arena much more appealing.

I think the Marriott is low-key stunning, but it goes kind of unnoticed due to the scale of the buildings around it. It would be a complete shame to lose it. I still maintain that the City Center would be an awesome place to live (since residents wouldn't have to look at it from their homes, lol) if someone could make the conversion work. I know, probably another pipe dream. It would also be an awesome spot for a public observation deck for the same reason....

Anyhow, GO WOLVES!!!

[angrysuburbanite]

It is possible to deconstruct a building of that size. 270 Park Avenue in New York City (a 707 foot tower) was removed, but the difference is that (a) it is New York City and (b) it was replaced by a new 1,388 foot tower. As much as I think we all hate the complex in its current state, it holds too much potential and would be a shame to lose. Not to mention that'd be a pretty noticeable gap in the skyline.

As someone with basically no interest/knowledge about how these stadiums work, I really don't understand why the existing location doesn't work. Giving up a prime locale like that is crazy to me. Though moving over to the Royalston/Farmers' Market area would really kickstart growth in that area of downtown. There's an opportunity for something really nice to be built there, and would be a big win for the SWLRT line.

[Silophant]

Also the site dimensions matter, not just the overall acreage. Even if you spend the money to demo the towers, a modern arena isn't going to fit into the 340' between 6th and 7th Streets any better than it fits into the 340' between 1st and 2nd Avenues. Having extra space past the ends of the court doesn't help with that.

[Tom H.]

I think the Marriott is low-key stunning, but it goes kind of unnoticed due to the scale of the buildings around it. It would be a complete shame to lose it.

I'm a long-time attender of SGDQ (speedrunning marathon) which has been at the Downtown Hilton for the past several years. It was at the Marriott for one single year (2017 I think?) and I really enjoyed the venue. The corner suite we stayed in was really nice, with the triangular building shape giving it some really nice views. The lobby / restaurant area was cool too with the open atrium. I was bummed they didn't stay there, but I think there were issues between the event and hotel management.

[twincitizen]

I've generally been a Frey guy but this is a bad idea, with flaws well beyond the financial infeasibility of demo'ing a 52-story building. Arenas require a fair amount of blank walls and worse, like loading docks. Even if the Hennepin and Nicollet frontages were total urbanist paradise lined with narrow shops, the 6th and 7th frontages would be block-long (actually superblock-long) hellscapes, as bad or worse than City Center today.

Keeping the arena close to the CBD is a good instinct. Frey is right to slightly shade the leading site at 501 Royalston, because it would pose real walkability challenges and would not benefit the businesses within the core of downtown like Target Center does today. It would require a 1/4-mile long skyway from Ramp A to connect it to downtown, and probably a fair amount of on-site parking too (players, coaches, courtside VIPs, etc.) But City Center likely will not work for several reasons, from the standard-width of the block, to the cost of demoing the Multifoods Tower, to urban design concerns. Dimensionally, it's arguably no better than the current Target Center site - barely longer and just as narrow. Nicollet and Hennepin need small shops and restaurants bringing activity every day, not long stretches of blank walls and activity on ~150(?) arena event days. At first glace, it seems like the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, but it doesn't hold up to any analysis.

Now that I've trashed someone else's bad idea, here are a couple of my own:

Old Heywood bus garage: Metro Transit won't support at this idea without funding to replace its functions elsewhere nearby. Was the new bus garage built with potential expansion in mind (adding onto its east wall to extend to 5th St N)? It's a decent site for the arena, slightly better than 501 Royalston on walkability from downtown, certainly from North Loop. LRT riders would use Target Field Station (blue and green line service) rather than Royalston Station (green line only), which seems like a big flaw with the 501 Royalston site.

Convention Center: partially remove and replace roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the convention center with a new arena. The good: it's city-owned. The bad: some larger convention business would be lost...or would it? I don't know enough about convention centers to know how much convention floor could be rebuilt as part of an arena buildout, and/or if having a connected arena would be beneficial to a convention center (seemingly yes?). It's skyway connected to a bunch of hotels and parking ramps. The surrounding area could certainly use a shot in the arm. There are less concerns with active frontages since it backs up to I-94, and on that note, did somebody say freeway lid? It should be seriously considered IMO. Certainly, it's no more pie-in-the-sky than tearing down a 52-story tower and active hotel that the city does not own.

HERC is still my #1 site. If we assume the politics are such that HERC will close (perhaps not in 2028, but maybe early-mid 2030s) there's not a better reuse of the site than for an arena. The limited vehicle access points, site grading, and train track noose around the site will make it difficult to build much of anything even after the burner is gone. The site isn't huge, but looks to be just large enough to build something bigger than Target Center in each dimension. For the team owners, all this site requires is patience, maybe another 5 years, and it will practically fall into their laps for free. I am begging A-Rod and Marc Lore to accept getting a new arena open in like 2036 instead of 2031.

P.S. Wolves in 6!!!

[angrysuburbanite]

Agree with HERC, kinda gets the best of both worlds in terms of potentially activating/boosting Royalston development as well as having better transit access and downtown proximity.

With the convention center idea: could the event space maybe be moved underground/below the arena?

[minntransplant]

I'm solidly anti public financing of stadiums, but I would be a total hypocrite and abandon any principles I have if it means replacing HERC with a stadium. When you think of needing a real coalition to get anything big done, the HERC site seems the best candidate for that.

[mattaudio]

Yeah even though I'm generally not opposed to HERC sticking around, removal/remediation of a publicly-owned garbage incineration facility sounds like exactly the pretext to give some site prep aid to an arena project and get greeniacs onboard with a stadium proposal.

[amiller92]

If we're going to subsidize sports facilities (which is a thing we shouldn't do but need to realize often happens anyway), there should at least be a way to use it as part of a larger development. North Loop in general doesn't seem like it needs it, but maybe replacing HERC (which I'm ambivalent about) would be enough.

I also don't mind the City Center location in the abstract. Were it not for the existing towers, I'd actually think its a decent idea.

[MNdible]

Sure, we just shut down HERC [buy a few dozen square miles of land out past Hector for the massive new landfill we'll need to replace it, expand the roads out there for the fleets of diesel burning garbage hauler trucks] and then build a new arena. EASY!

[Mdcastle]

Don't forget building a new fossil fuel plant to replace the energy we're getting from HERC.

[mplsjaromir]

We should just let people burn trash in their backyards.

[Record Machine]

I’m surprised to see so much anti-HERC sentiment here.

[AccordGuy]

Does the City of Minneapolis really need to have the basketball arena? Why not build it near the Mall of America? There is already a lot of parking, access to light rail, and good freeway access. Why do we need this in Minneapolis? Plus, there are already plenty of entertainment/shopping options there, as well.

[Mdcastle]

I have a feeling the space around Mall of America will still be vacant when the Vikings start asking for a new stadium in 15 years or so. The trend in NFL stadiums is going away from compact downtown sites; all six of the ones currently being proposed and 8 / 10 of the last ones opened (ours and Lucas Oil being the exceptions) are not downtown. Fans get to actually tailgate and owners get "stadium districts" to rake money from.

[Zkools20]

Arenas should be in heart of the city. With how many events they host makes it a no brainer to have the arena in downtown. All the foot traffic from fans staying in downtown or eating out and shopping before/after events is well worth the investment. Having the arena move to MOA would kill the downtown region during the colder months.