To fans in the stands, the Twins' new ballpark with all its stone and Kentucky bluegrass looks like it's all wrapped up and done. Behind the scenes, there's still a scramble underway to clean up the real estate titles to the jigsaw patchwork of land the ballpark sits on.
It's no small job, as Target Field sits in one of the oldest parts of a city known for fuzzy property lines.
It has taken since 2006 to determine where, exactly, all boundary lines of the many parcels beneath the stadium lie, and what kind of old and long-lost easements had been granted and who still needs access to what, such as the city of Minneapolis, which owns a storm-water culvert running under third base. The squadron of lawyers, surveyors and title experts who've worked on the project say there are gaps and overlaps between parcels, areas that weren't platted at all, records that go back to before Minnesota became a state (1858) and bloopers in some of the deeding.
About 8 acres of the land belonged to the estimated 70 landowners who were part of Land Partners II, which pitched a highly publicized battle with the county over the pricetag after the land was condemned. They eventually agreed to about $29 million. But there were other parcels belonging to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the city of Minneapolis and the BNSF Railway, among others.
There were dusty old rights and easements for railroad uses, an old meatpacking company and utilities. The Walker family -- which originally made its money in lumber and owned a lot of land in Minneapolis though is probably now best known for the art museum -- still technically owned a little piece of 7th Street due to some deeding error but never claimed it, said Carla Pedersen, a lawyer at McGrann Shea Carnival Straughn & Lamb that handles all the legal work for the Minnesota Ballpark Authority, the public agency that owns the 15.85 acres that the ballpark, plaza and parking lots sit on.
"This land has incredible messy titles," Pedersen said. "I've been practicing for about 20 years and this is the most complex survey and registration project that I have ever worked on."
Pedersen, the ballpark authority and Hennepin County are now working to convert the whole shebang into a clean registered title under the more modern Torrens system -- a once-and-for-all certificate that, like the title to a car, pretty much eliminates the possibility of someone else claiming some legal right to it. The system is named for Sir Robert Torrens, an Irishman who formulated the new system of land transfer in Australia in the early 1800s.
Many property owners in Minnesota have abstract property that doesn't have one certificate of title issued by the examiner of titles, but comes with a fee simple title -- essentially a collection of old paperwork recording the changing of hands. Most of the country still operates with abstract property.
