Secrets of the City

Here’s the Strib’s opinion, in tomorrow’s editorial.

Indoor resort. Fill the field with water, add some sand for a beach. Build hotel suites all the way up where the bleachers are right now. It’d be amazing.

Jesus. I actually like that idea.

I like the idea too. Far better than my previous idea of turning the dome into the world’s largest casino, and using the proceeds to pay for the new stadiums.

Rather than the Vikings, give it to the Como Conservatory. They could plant a whole tropical jungle in there, trees and all, make it kind of a Minnesota biosphere. Imagine entering the Dome on a soul-sapping -10° day in January, shedding your coat, and sitting amongst 10 acres of ferns, palms, orchids, and even a few monkeys thrown in for good measure. You could even put Kwatt’s beach resort in a corner and still have lots of room.

Yet with the roof, no danger of harmful UV rays! Millions of people who’ve stopped going to the beach out of fear of sun-related dangers, will come out of the woodwork and overflow the bleeping place! I myself have sufficient pigmentation that it’s not an issue, but my Norwegian wife hasn’t been to the beach since 1996.

Thank you for the topic!

Anyhow, to answer ThuggaLova, I really can’t see anything of that sort happening. Remember the indoor Town Square Park in downtown St Paul? It cost the city well over $1 million a year, and was closed in 2001. I’ve seen it recently, and it’s kind of depressing knowning how there were fountains, trees, restaurants, and a carousel up there. I’d love for it to open again, but it cost the city a lot of money.

(Side note: In Town Square the angled walls along the top of the building were originally part of a plan to add a PeopleMover along the top of the building. Unfortunately, those plans were scrapped. … So many good memories there… I miss Donaldson’s department store as well…)

Tear the thing down. Plant lots of trees. Turn it into a park with free wi-fi. We need more greenspace downtown.

Joe Soucheray is a fascist douchebag.

That said, I think the Dome should be kept around – just as it is – as a shrine to the avarice and greed displayed by sports fans and smalled minded legislators who NEED to build Billion Dollar Stadiums for Billionaires on the backs of Joe & Janet Public.

Let it fall into squalor and disrepair…a physical manifestation of our collective lack of a soul.

See- after awhile it will start to look almost as bad as many of the inner city schools. Ironic ain’t it!

And maybe when Jim Pohlad comes back and demands we build him ANOTHER new stadium in 20 years (the current half life for billion dollar stadiums) someone might think of the dome cum monument and say -”hey, wait one good gol darn minute” before they inevitably get on their knees and hemorage $$$ out of their ass.

i think they should save it for staging areas for “world’s largest…” contests.

Best idea I’ve seen was in the Skyway News a couple of years ago. Somebody commissioned some urban planners to come up with some ideas. They tore down the dome and replaced it with a central park (which lord knows, this city needs) surrounded by a mixed-use neighborhood. Sort of like the Loring Park area.

It does make you wonder about the light rail stop, but that could serve a park/neighborhood nicely.

I like Soucheray’s idea too, as long as Zygi doesn’t get free reign to turn the Metrodome area into a bigger wasteland than it already is.

Joe Soucheray is a fascist douchebag.

Gotta love tolerant, understanding, caring, open-minded liberals like Raindog66.

Did you even bother to read Soucheray’s article, or did you just decide to discount it as trash because you don’t like him?

Here we go again with hess…

Anyhow, I think that Soucheray makes some good points, particularily how we were scammed into it (I feel the same way about the Mall Of America), and it has always been an utter disaster.

What I wonder is who on earth designed it? Why did the architectchoose about the worst possible way to design it so that no matter what it is you are watching it has horrible seating and accoustics? Why did we end up paying so much money for a rotten structure?

If it gets torn down, they should do it correctly. I think downtown St. Paul did the Xcel Center / RiverCentre / Roy Wilkins Auditorium the right way, and it’s a great place for many different events. No surpise that it’s being considered for the DNC.

And I’ve always wondered why they would choose Blaine of all places (other than of course money)? It’s out in the boondocks, and I don’t plan on going out there for anything. And if you live in the southern suburbs forget about it completely.

Perhaps it should be kept standing as some sort of tribute, especially since Minneapolis has a wonderful history of tearing down beautiful buildings, erecting hideous ones in their place, ripping down the hideous ones, and constructing more hideous ones that people are only going to want to rip down in another 40 years.

I’m sick of taxes because a city screws up. Do it right the first time.

The Metrodome – a monument of a disposable society and a disposable city.

Gotta love tolerant, understanding, caring, open-minded liberals like Raindog66.

This ain’t your Daddy’s liberalism. Need a hug, pussy?

And I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to giving neocon zealots any of my time.

Present company included.

This ain’t your Daddy’s liberalism. Need a hug, pussy?

Ah, so you’ve decided to reject the days when Democrats used to actually win elections before becoming a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics who blame America for everything wrong with the world (but don’t question their patriotism).

Go marry Cindy Sheehan. She needs some lovin’ mighty bad, since her husband separated from her and her family has disowned her.

Hess — it’s OK, let it all out. The big mean liberals can’t hurt you here.

Raindog = 2, Hess = 0.

Nice, Hess. The woman’s son got killed in the war, and you’re making fun of her in an unclever, non-sequitor straight outta Limbaugh. I think you wish you were worthy of such a lady, but deepdown you know that measured against someone like Cindy Sheehan, you are a piss-ant parrot piece of shit who’s never gotten laid, much less survived anything relevant in your asshole existence.
This noble activist-mom’s very noteworthiness in the news is completely misunderstood by idiots like you. She is a real person, trying to say something important.
…And we’re talking about the Dome here, not your blathering misogyny.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I’m not supposed to criticize Sheehan because her son died in Iraq.

Never mind the fact that he volunteered the first time… then voluntarily re-inlisted.

Never mind the fact that she’s trying to pull off a publiciity stunt. I have to question her dedication to the anti-war movement as well. Anytime there is a camera within a 50 mile radius, she always does something ridiculous to muscle her way on TV. She just likes attention. Why else would she create a hunger strike and yet eat ice cream, coffee, and Jamba Juice (PS: chopped up fruit and sherbet is still food!).

I love it when people shut her down. This recently happened on Hardball on MSNBC. It’s pretty easy to do, and Norah O’Donnell does it with such grace.

The Metrodome has just found a new use. Designate it a moonbat utopia and they can create their own authoritarian s0cial ist regime where people pay 75% in taxes, kill babies, march around with depictions of popular Republicans being hung, hold book burning fests, and wallow in their own shallowness and unhingedness. The Metrodome would be the perfect place for the Athiest Left!

Ugly or not, the Dome is a sports shine. Anyplace that hosted two World Series, a Superbowl and a Final Four (not to mention the T-Wolves first games, the Gophers, all those high school championships, concerts, etc.) during its brief tenure is too important to tear down.

Especially when there is nothing wrong with the building (outside asthetics). Great location. Mass transit. Paid for. Multifunctional. Historic.

Gee, let’s knock it down ’cause Ziggy sez so…

Hmm…another post filled with moronic people that have no objective opinions beyond what they hear on FOX.

I didn’t know we lived in the tropics, when did parrots become indigenous species in Minnesota?

It’s out in the boondocks

Out in the boondocks for one man is right down the street for another.

there is nothing wrong with the building

Bad seating arrangements and bad accoustics do not qualify as part of being asthetics.

However, structurally it is sound.

Why wasn’t it designed and built properly to begin with?

Raindog66, please don’t use the vagina in a negative sense. It is misogynic.

No…the boonsocks are the boondocks!

Just ask Riley!

And the seating is only screwed up for the baseball set up not the football set up. The seating was designed for football and modified for use with baseball. That’s why the seats don’t face home plate, they all face the 50 yardline.

How did a perfectly good thread turn into a discussion of Cindy Sheehan? Wow. Impressive even by MNSpeak standards.

There’s a lot of smart people here, you’d think there would be some good ideas on what to do with that site. If they’re not going to play in there, it seems silly to keep that building standing. It isn’t exactly pretty. Of course, if football goes to Blaine, you can kiss goodbye any NCAA tournament games.

The Strib article reflects how I’m thinking. Quite a while ago, I realized that if there’s one decent use of a Gophers stadium, it’s as a temporary home for the Vikings, while their Metrodome site is renovated/reconstructed.

By the way, has anyone else noticed that the wingnuts have been all in a tizzy since Israel went on the offensive?

Tizzy? I’ve lost my dictionary, please explain. I do think the rampant anti-jewish left-wing press is sickening though. Their total focus on the poor christian lebanese evacuees is pathetic.

See- after awhile it will start to look almost as bad as many of the inner city schools. Ironic ain’t it!

actually, let’s convert the metrodome for use as a giant central public schooling facility where every child in the city goes to school!
you can wring out more education per dollar through economies of scale and even keep part of the field for athletics!

Goodness! How did Cindy Sheehan come into all of this? Her 15 minutes of fame were up almost a year ago. I didn’t know anybody still paid any attention to that deplorable imbecile of a human being.

Back to ‘dome talk, I think we should honor Minneapolis tradition by knocking down a perfectly good structure and covering over it with a huge surface parking lot.

also, GUYS GUYS, TAKE THIS BULLSHIT BACK TO CRAIGSLIST RNR!

I could use a little RNR.

Three part plan:

Part 1: Move the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market to the Armory downtown.

Part 2: Build new Viking’s Stadium on the old Farmer’s Market site (it has adjacency to the Twin’s Stadium, Target Center, freeways, and the big parking ramps).

Part 3: Redevelop Metrodome Site as new park surrounded by new development.

fin

can’t belive i’m saying this, but the strib editorial on the dome site vs. blaine was spot on, from an urban planning perspective. DT Mpls has the transit infrastructure, the hotel rooms, and the restaurants to support a multi-use stadium.

Yeah, I know everyone on MSspeak hates public financing for stadiums. Point made, ad nauseum.

The fact is, it will be built, and you will pay for it.

Shouldn’t we try and get it built where it makes sense?

Say no to sprawl and yes to public transit for sporting events! (yeah university LRT!)

It sounds almost like Blaine/Anoka County want to build some super duper mega project to compete directly with the real downtowns, which is completely asinine and yes, as the strib said, a huge waste of resources considering it’s redundant and incredibly out of the way.

Has anyone contacted the Army Corps of Engineers to see if the Metrodome sits on a wetland?

What to do with the Metrodome? One word: Mega-Ultra-Bowl-O-Rama!

How about a Vikings stadium (with retractable seats) in a suburb, on St
Paul’s Ford Plant site, or in Minneapolis’ Above The Falls Area? Such seats
are a wise investment in case the Twins need this venue for a short time
or more (sooner or later). A rectangular or an oval design will offer better
sightlines for each sport than round formats do. This facility can be similar
to (yet better than) the Dome. Can the Twins use it for a few years, tear
down the Dome, and build a ballpark on the Dome’s site?

Why not build the Vikings’ stadium on a spot with more parking? With or
without a smaller venue on the Dome’s footprint, congestion can lessen in
and near Downtown East. Further, building stadiums on locations that are
bigger than Rapid Park is seems easier and wiser, even if away from
Downtown East. Thanks.