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There are plans to renovate the St. Paul, Minnesota arena but for those plans to materialize, public funding is needed. St. Paul city leaders plan to ask Minnesota lawmakers for $200 million to help pay off the estimated $600 million needed to fund the construction. The City of St. Paul will put up $162.5 million to renovate the arena through a half-cent sales tax. The ownership of the Minnesota Wild franchise will kick in another $162.5 million. Minnesota politicians and business leaders in 1954 decided that the Minneapolis area needed to become a major league area despite having the best team in the struggling National Basketball Association and the best player, the Minneapolis Lakers and George Mikan, in town. The Minneapolis Lakers franchise owners never did get an arena and left town for Los Angeles in 1960. But the state did build a stadium in Bloomington and the Minneapolis-St. Paul market did become “major league” in 1961 after the National Football League awarded the market a 1961 expansion franchise and Calvin Griffith moved his Major League Baseball Washington franchise to Bloomington also in 1961. The National Hockey League expanded into the market in 1967 but that North Stars franchise lasted just 26 seasons. In 1993 the team owner Norman Green moved the business to Dallas. The NHL expanded and returned to the market in 2000 after St. Paul built an arena.
Minnesota taxpayers have footed the bill for two multiple purpose stadiums, a baseball stadium, a football stadium, a college football stadium, one arena in Bloomington and a bailout of a Minneapolis arena and two St. Paul arenas in the past 72 years but it is not enough. The stadium and arena game never ends in Minnesota as the National Basketball Association’s Timberwolves ownership and the Wild ownership are begging for state money for upgrades.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
