Development around stadium (Minneapolis, Viking: neighborhood, high school, college)

[Oildog]

How to Build a Successful Downtown Stadium - Jobs & Economy - The Atlantic Cities

Something to consider if the Vikes get down to business...or should I say legislature.

[golfgal]

I have to say that there just is not much within easy (quick) walking distance from the dome. We have a band competition there every year and have a 2 hour break for dinner. You have the choice of Old Spaghetti Factory, a Wasabi place, a couple of EXPENSIVE places and Grumpy's. We go to Grumpy's. We are in jeans and sweatshirts, not appropriate for the 2 nicer places and everyone else goes to Spaghetti Factory, that and the bloody Mary's at Grumpy's are really good. Now, usually people don't need to get back to the dome after eating like we do, but still, you need to get in your car or take the rail to get to places with good choices.

[1stpontiac]

Originally Posted by golfgal

I have to say that there just is not much within easy (quick) walking distance from the dome. We have a band competition there every year and have a 2 hour break for dinner. You have the choice of Old Spaghetti Factory, a Wasabi place, a couple of EXPENSIVE places and Grumpy's. We go to Grumpy's. We are in jeans and sweatshirts, not appropriate for the 2 nicer places and everyone else goes to Spaghetti Factory, that and the bloody Mary's at Grumpy's are really good. Now, usually people don't need to get back to the dome after eating like we do, but still, you need to get in your car or take the rail to get to places with good choices.

Agreed. To me, DT basically ends at 3rd Ave. S, with maybe a couple more block right along the river, to get to the Guthrie. Its nice to think that the new stadium could spark development to fill in the gap, but who knows? After all, clearly the Metrodome didn't spark much.

Now if we could get Summit to build a nice brewery with factory tours, a beer garden, and offsale right behind the Armory, maybe that would be enough. Or maybe I just want all of that close to my office

Side note to GG: If you are into greek and middle eastern food at all, this place is a few blocks the opposite direction from the dome:

East Village Grill - Downtown Minneapolis - Minneapolis, MN

Low-key, hole-in-the-wall, and delicious gyros.

[Globe199]

Good article. The Twin Cities are much more like Phoenix than Denver -- the urban form here is definitely polycentric. That spells doom for stadium-based development. The utter dearth of development around the Metrodome overwhelmingly proves this point. The restaurants that golfgal lists do not exist because of the Dome. More importantly, a new Vikings stadium would almost certainly not spur meaningful development in part because of the reasons outlined in the article.

Yet stadium supporters continue to crow to the contrary. Their opinions are largely based on how they "feel" rather than on any real data or research. They "just know" it will work out. In fact, I would argue that a football stadium is even worse than baseball for ancillary development since there are only one-tenth the games each year. I read somewhere that the Dome employs only 19 full-time staff. The stadium would be essentially empty almost all the time.

[politiker]

Originally Posted by Globe199

Good article. The Twin Cities are much more like Phoenix than Denver -- the urban form here is definitely polycentric. That spells doom for stadium-based development. The utter dearth of development around the Metrodome overwhelmingly proves this point. The restaurants that golfgal lists do not exist because of the Dome. More importantly, a new Vikings stadium would almost certainly not spur meaningful development in part because of the reasons outlined in the article.

Yet stadium supporters continue to crow to the contrary. Their opinions are largely based on how they "feel" rather than on any real data or research. They "just know" it will work out. In fact, I would argue that a football stadium is even worse than baseball for ancillary development since there are only one-tenth the games each year. I read somewhere that the Dome employs only 19 full-time staff. The stadium would be essentially empty almost all the time.

Definitely sounds like it should be in the suburbs so it doesn't take up vital downtown space while remaining empty most of the year.

[ManBearPig1]

Not that I'm a fan of subsidizing sports stadiums, but comparing the current situation to development around the dome isn't appropriate. The area around the dome was, at the time, purposefully zoned to discourage major development. This was done to concentrate all new development in the downtown core. The area around the dome has since been rezoned to allow for more development, now that the core has grown and filled-in. That doesn't necessarily mean a new stadium will spark any such development, but the history of the dome isn't an appropriate argument against it.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by 1stpontiac

Agreed. To me, DT basically ends at 3rd Ave. S, with maybe a couple more block right along the river, to get to the Guthrie. Its nice to think that the new stadium could spark development to fill in the gap, but who knows? After all, clearly the Metrodome didn't spark much.

Now if we could get Summit to build a nice brewery with factory tours, a beer garden, and offsale right behind the Armory, maybe that would be enough. Or maybe I just want all of that close to my office

Side note to GG: If you are into greek and middle eastern food at all, this place is a few blocks the opposite direction from the dome:

East Village Grill - Downtown Minneapolis - Minneapolis, MN

Low-key, hole-in-the-wall, and delicious gyros.

Thanks for the tip on the Greek place. I will have to remember that.

[ischyros]

I thought that article was interesting, too, but it didn't mention the city that completely revitalized its downtown around sports: Indianapolis. Full disclaimer, I live in Indianapolis so I'm a bit biased. Indy revitalized downtown with sports, building the dome, the arena for the Pacers, and Victory Field, our AAA minor league ballpark, all downtown. And there are a wide range of opinions about Lucas Oil Stadium and how it was funded. But one thing that was done right is that parking near the stadium is very, very limited. It's not unheard of to park in the middle or the other side of downtown to go to a Colts game and this essentially forces people to walk past all kinds of shops and restaurants. And those places are packed before and after games. Looking at the cities from the article, Chase Stadium in Phoenix is surrounded by a convention center and parking garages and very little else. Coors Field in Denver, however, has little parking nearby giving it more of a neighborhood feel. Looking at Minneapolis, it seems there are a lot of parking lots near the Metrodome. And if you have a place to park right next to the stadium, there's no need to venture into the downtown area itself. Then again, Minneapolis seems to have a decent mass transit system whereas ours is virtually non-existent on Sundays. So we have no choice but to drive to the games.

And unfortunately, there's no way for Minneapolis to build the new stadium next to the convention center. Lucas Oil Stadium is directly connected by tunnel to our convention center so the stadium is used a lot even when football season is over. But I think a big part of the key is to keep parking next to the stadium to a minimum. Force people to park more in the downtown area.

[golfgal]

When the dome roof collapsed, the news articles said that there were 250+ days of dome usage outside of the Vikings. There are a lot of "home shows", "sporting goods shows", etc. that happen on weekends there as well as high school and college sporting events, etc. It's not like the dome sits empty outside of the 8 Vikings games.

[ischyros]

Originally Posted by golfgal

When the dome roof collapsed, the news articles said that there were 250+ days of dome usage outside of the Vikings. There are a lot of "home shows", "sporting goods shows", etc. that happen on weekends there as well as high school and college sporting events, etc. It's not like the dome sits empty outside of the 8 Vikings games.

I stand corrected then, on that issue. What I said was based on what Globe said about the stadium being empty most of the time.