At the intersection of Snelling and University Avenues in St. Paul on Tuesday around 6:30 p.m., I was stopped at a red light in the left turn lane. A man with a sign simply asking "please help" stood in the median. My 3-year-old daughter started to wave to him from the back seat while my 7-month old daughter drifted off into sleep. I froze for a couple seconds, then contorted in my seat to try to get my wallet out of my pocket to give him a dollar (knowing full well I could give him more, which is a different level of guilt). But the light turned green with a row of cars behind me. I made my left turn as the man stared blankly ahead.
My 3-year-old asked what the man had been doing there. I told her that he was asking for money because he was having a hard time — that he probably didn't have enough money to afford a place to live or perhaps even buy food to eat. She replied that it was OK, he could just live under the stoplight. I told her that he was dry and warm for now, but in Minnesota it gets cold and rainy — and worse. Overnight, in fact, it did rain. I told her that I was going to try to give him a little money so he could buy some food, but that the light changed too soon. She thought about it for a few seconds and said, "When people don't have enough money to buy food or a house, we should give them money."
Two minutes later, we were inside a store where we bought $200 worth of groceries and other things. We went back to a house full of beds and comforts. I don't think I'll ever forget the exchange with my daughter, but it wasn't until many hours later that I could attempt to connect the dots between what happened at that intersection and some other thoughts rattling around in my head about sports stadiums. Bear with me:
*The Twin Cities area has spent a lot of money — some might say too much — on many new and/or refurbished sports stadiums. This is not the fault of any one team — rather a one-by-one reflection of the times we live in — but it's pretty staggering.
Consider that from 2009 through 2019 — a span of 10 years — the metro area did or will open a new college football stadium (TCF Bank Stadium, 2009), a new Twins ballpark (Target Field, 2010), a new St. Paul Saints ballpark (CHS Field, 2015), a new Vikings stadium (U.S. Bank, 2016), a remodeled Wolves/Lynx arena (Target Center, 2017) and a new United stadium (2019). Add in the new Gophers practice facilities/athletes village and don't discount how nice Xcel Energy Center still is almost two decades after opening, and look at what we've done. It's beautiful and staggering. It's too excessive, however you choose to view the word. Whether the money was public, private or some combination, there was a choice made to spend billions of dollars on places for teams to play.
The Wild and Wolves could easily share an arena, as the NBA and NHL teams do in other markets. There was talk for a time of the Vikings and Gophers football combining on a new stadium — and this talk was going on while those two teams, plus the Twins, shared one building. Minnesota United could play in an existing venue instead of building its own facility. This is proven by the fact that one ownership group bid to have them play in U.S. Bank Stadium, while for now Loons are playing in TCF Bank Stadium.
*We have built too much and paid too much, but if we have done one thing right it's this: at least we have built (or are building) these facilities in the right places. Every single new stadium built in that 10-year span is in Minneapolis or St. Paul.
Each one is reasonably accessible from all corners of the sprawling metro area. Sure, it's a haul to go from Plymouth to downtown St. Paul or from Woodbury to downtown Minneapolis. But you're not trying to go from Plymouth to Woodbury, Lakeville to Blaine, or vice-versa. More importantly in the bigger picture, each of those facilities is accessible on the light rail and via other public transportation.
