The mayor of Minneapolis claims the city won’t put up money for arena construction.
Alex Rodriguez and Marc Loree will be taking full ownership of the National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the Women’s National Basketball Association’s Minnesota Lynx shortly. Their first order of business is what to do about the aging arena the two teams use. The Minneapolis arena is going to celebrate its 35th birthday in October and even though it has been renovated, 35 is a bad number in the arena business. The usefulness as a money generator is gone. Rodriguez and Loree want to keep the two businesses in Minneapolis but getting public money could a be problem. The public money could be used to help pay down a new venue’s debt. Minnesota is well acquainted with the stadium and arena game. For about seven decades taxpayers have thrown money into multiple use stadiums, a baseball stadium, a college football stadium, a National Football League stadium and arenas. After the market got an NBA expansion franchise in 1987 the expansion team ownership could not afford the expansion fee which was only $32 million and the cost of constructing the arena. The franchise owners were drowning in debt. The team was sold and in 1995, the city of Minneapolis took over the Timberwolves arena.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is on record saying the city won’t help with arena financing but that does not mean Minneapolis won’t be throwing money into a proposed arena. There are always other ways to give a helping hand to a sports team owner. If the Timberwolves ownership wants to build an arena-village, there are mechanisms that would allow them to keep all the tax money generated within the development or not pay property tax. Instead there is something called PILOT, payments in lieu of taxes, one lump sum payment generally way below market value. There are creative solutions available.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
