The 24-year-old building appears to be outdated.

Here we go again in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market. A sports franchise owner wants public funds to help renovate an arena. In this case, it is the National Hockey League’s Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold who claims he would put up money for a renovation of St. Paul’s 24-year-old arena. The present building replaced the St. Paul Civic Center which lasted from 1973 to 1998. How much money Leipold plans to invest and how much state and local money will be needed is at this point unknown. But taxpayers will be digging into their pockets again if the building is renovated.

Minnesota has had a lot of experience in building sports venues. Two multi-use stadiums for baseball and football, separate stadiums for baseball and football, a college football stadium, a takeover of an arena in Minneapolis, two arenas in St. Paul and an arena in Bloomington. How did Minnesota get into the sports venue building business? Blame it on Milwaukee politicians. In 1950, Milwaukee elected officials went looking for a baseball team and attempted to keep the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers home games in the city. The political leaders decided to build a stadium because if you build they will come. Milwaukee got Major League Baseball’s Boston Braves owner Lou Perini to move to the city in 1953. Minnesota officials in 1954 decided to become a major league area and found 164 acres of farm land in Bloomington as the site for a major league stadium. A small stadium paid for by taxpayers opened in 1956. In 1958, more money would be thrown into the stadium to expand the seating. It worked. The NFL and MLB came to town in 1961. An arena was built in Bloomington for an NHL team that came in 1967. The stadium-arena money merry go round continues in Minnesota.

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Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold