Stadium plan advances, but with a minor bit of discord

A city-county panel couldn't agree on access to a walkway, but passed along the design to the Hennepin County Board .

By Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune

Last update: October 31, 2007 - 8:44 PM

Celebration over the design of the Twins' new ballpark earlier this week soured Wednesday as a city-county planning committee stalemated and forwarded the ballpark plans without an agreement on public access to a key stadium concourse.

The plans for the $390-million ballpark still advance to the Hennepin County Board for approval. Officials said they hope the squabble between city and county representatives to the Ballpark Implementation Committee, which was established by legislation and has been meeting monthly for almost a year, can be resolved.

"Our recourse is to get together and try to figure it out and compromise," said Rick Johnson, ballpark project coordinator for Hennepin County.

The single contentious item among 18 design and jurisdiction issues discussed by the group involved security in a covered concourse. The walkway, which will stretch about a half-block from the corner of N. 5th Street and 3rd Avenue to the 6th Street Plaza, will be hidden from street view, and that raised security concerns among some panel members.

On non-game days, the proposed pedestrian hours for the concourse were from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. But representatives of the city of Minneapolis, including Lisa Goodman, the city council member whose ward includes the ballpark, wanted the concourse open until 3 a.m.

Goodman said the city is closing a street for the ballpark, displacing pedestrians who relied on sidewalks in the area. Thousands of residents who live near the ballpark deserve a walkway that's open for most of the day, she said.

"Public space should be available to the public," she said. "We vacated an entire public block for this."

Fellow Council Member Barbara Johnson agreed.

"It's incumbent on us to provide as much public area as possible," she said. "I am ready to provide the police resources for this."

But while the stadium will have 24-hour security and the walkway would be lit and monitored by cameras, opponents to the longer hours worried that people could be robbed or assaulted along the concourse late at night.

A Twins official also indicated the team was concerned that the late hours could lead to vandalism or people trying to get on the field.

County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin said that staffing the concourse at night with police was "an indefensible use of police resources."

But another panel member, Frank Guzzetta, Macy's North chairman and chief executive officer, suggested the extended hours at least be tried.

"Any time any area is cut off, you get a dead zone," he said. "Open it first, and if nobody goes there, you can look back at it."

Goodman's call for longer hours, which was contingent on completion of a policing plan and a funding agreement by the city, failed on a 5-5 vote. The committee's recommendations now go to the county board without any guidelines for pedestrian access to the covered concourse on non-game days.

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380

Mary Jane Smetanka • smetan@startribune.com

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