Daily Herald editorial

For those who hope the Vikings will get a new stadium, the signs could not be more muddled. The governor, who has appeared to be a stadium proponent, this week outlined deficiencies in all of the major stadium plans, while key lawmakers said they don’t particularly agree with the governor and the Vikings themselves continue to push for what may be the most flawed of all the stadium sites. Could it be that the time is simply not right for a new, publicly subsidized stadium?

The problems facing various stadium plans seem nearly insurmountable. One might threaten the fragile St. Mary’s Basilica in downtown Minneapolis, another has major funding problems, and so on. One of the more telling comments about the stadium situation came from Gov. Dayton when he noted that the current Metrodome sight had not in 30 years attracted much other economic development. Although Dayton’s comments were specific to the Dome site, we wonder whether the same lack of additional economic activity wouldn’t be true at any stadium location where the main attraction takes place fewer than a dozen times a year.

The reality is that spending $1.1 billion, much of it from public funds of one sort or another, is unlikely to ever pay off for the public, although it would be wonderful for the Vikings.

Be that as it may, the confusion and disarray surround stadium plans is as strong a suggestion as any that building a new stadium may just not make sense.