Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf asserted himself as the key participant in revitalizing the east side of downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday with a blockbuster purchase of four city blocks near
the Metrodome - a deal that city officials predict the Vikings will use as a springboard to ultimately gain legislative approval for a new stadium.
The Vikings paid $45 million, sources said, to Avista Capital Partners, the new owners of the Star Tribune. The deal does not include the block that houses the newspaper's main building.
This transaction, along with Wilf's acquisition of three downtown parking lots for a total of $5 million last month and his pursuit of an underground ramp next to the Dome, are pieces in an urban
facelift that Wilf said would cost nearly $2 billion - $954 million of that for a stadium with a retractable roof.
The Vikings have no financial partner in the venture, but buying the Star Tribune land "makes it easier for the business community to rally behind the Vikings and the Metropolitan Sports Facilities
Commission," said Sam Grabarski, president of the Downtown Council.
"It's a great start," Grabarski said.
A spokesman for Mayor R.T. Rybak agreed. "It will help us achieve our vision," said Jeremy Hanson, who noted that the city has been kept abreast of designs by the urban planner working with Wilf.
One of the Avista owners, OhSang Kwon, lauded the Vikings for committing to downtown Minneapolis. He quickly added that he did not see the sale having any effect on the Star Tribune's
operations. "I don't think it will have any impact on the readers or the newspaper," he said.
Minneapolis officials have said the city does not have the money to fund a Vikings stadium, Hennepin County is financially committed to the Twins' new ballpark, and Gov. Tim Pawlenty has said repeatedly the state has no immediate plans to build a stadium for Minnesota's pro football team. Until the Vikings gain legislative approval for a stadium, each downtown land parcel that Wilf
acquires will be critiqued as closely as the team's play selection.
"We have fairly definitive ideas for the development of that section of downtown," said Patrick Born, the city's financial director. "If Mr. Wilf and his company want to be consistent with those plans - and it seems that way - then, that's great.
"But the Vikings want to combine development with a new football stadium. That hasn't come together. There hasn't been any public jurisdiction indicating a willingness of the public to participate in that plan."
`A real commitment'
The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, owner of the Metrodome and the Vikings' public partner in pursuit of a new stadium on the Metrodome site, believes that the purchase of the
Star Tribune land is "significant because it demonstrates a real commitment [by the Vikings] to both the Metrodome site and downtown east," said Bill Lester, the commission's executive director.
Commission Chairman Roy Terwilliger called the acquisition "a plus" and predicted "that the Vikings will pick up other properties, that the other property owners will fall in line with it."
Wilf, a New Jersey developer, has talked with more than two dozen owners of property in the area surrounding the Metrodome. But the Star Tribune property is considered crucial to Wilf's plans.
One of those blocks - the one with the newspaper's Freeman Building on 3rd Street and Portland Avenue S. - has been designated as the site of a park, according to plans by the ROMA Group, a San Francisco urban planner hired by the Sports Facilities Commission with the Vikings' blessing.
As part of the transaction, the Vikings are believed to have a right of first refusal to later buy the newspaper's longtime main office building, sources said.
In an interview on March 14, Kwon did not rule out the possibility of one day selling the 425 Portland Av. block. But Kwon said Wednesday it would not likely happen anytime soon. Kwon said
the stress involved with producing a daily newspaper and, at the same time, relocating a newsroom already reduced in staffing by buyouts was not something Avista felt the Star Tribune could bear at this time.
Other area landowners have waited anxiously for the deal to be finalized.
"They want to concentrate on the immediate neighborhood," said Basant Kharbanda, who owns property near the Metrodome and was contacted by Wilf's representatives months ago.
Kharbanda said he was unsure whether the Star Tribune sale could trigger more property sales to Wilf, "but this was a big step."
Wilf currently is negotiating to buy an underground parking ramp at the light-rail station by the Metrodome. The ramp is owned by the city and was put up for auction last fall. The leading bidder,
developer Bob Lux, is negotiating with Wilf. According to reports by the Sports Facilities Commission, Wilf is willing to pay up to $14.5 million for the 450-stall ramp that cost the city $17.3
million to build and has lost nearly $15 million in recent years.