The new St. Paul soccer stadium proposal is beautiful. It's as if someone said, "I wonder what a $150 million soap bubble would look like." Since it's a soccer stadium, though, it will take twice as long as usual to construct, because workers will constantly fall down and grab their knee and fake an injury.
It's a nice conclusion to our Oprah Winfrey phase: and you get a facility! And you get a facility! Everyone gets a facility! In 20 years there will be a new sport that consists of players hanging from drones, engaging in aerial jousting, and we'll need a new stadium for them, but for now we seem to be done.
No, we can't use the Vikings stadium for that. It'll be 7 feet too short. C'mon, do you WANT the Minnesota Pterodactyls to move to L.A.?
The rest of the development looks … optimistic, let's say. Office towers, because proximity to soccer is always tops on the list of any law firm looking for space. A hotel, too, because I don't think a developer has announced a new hotel in the last six days.
Of course all the low-slung stores nearby will have to go. No one's saying that's in the plan, but do you think developers want to build a tony complex of offices and hotels and trees next to a big suburban-style shopping area? Oh yes, we anticipate a large role for a sprawling liquor store set back in a sea of cracked asphalt. Oh, if that funky-junky bookstore on the corner hangs around for a few years that'll be fine; it's colorful, but really, can't you see a Panera there? People love those sandwiches.
Overhauling the Snelling-University intersection would give the corridor a center of gravity. But there's a big grocery store at Midway Center. Where are those customers supposed to go? Sorry, you can't drive to the store anymore and get 10 tons of fruit and meat, but you can take the Green Line to the Trader Joe's. They have awesome kiwi smoothies.
They're the official drink of the Pterodactyls!
