Target Field is a baseball stadium in the historic warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis. Since its opening in 2010, the stadium has been the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins. It is named for Target Corporation, which is headquartered in Minneapolis. The stadium hosted the 2014 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. It has also served as the home of other local and regional baseball events.
The ballpark is open-air; though originally designed for baseball, it has also hosted football, soccer, hockey games, and concerts.
In 2010, ESPN The Magazine ranked Target Field as the number one baseball stadium experience in North America.
Summary
Target Field is the Twins/Senators sixth ballpark, and the franchise's third in Minnesota. The Twins had played 28 seasons at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, and before that 21 seasons at Metropolitan Stadium. The Twins shared both facilities with the Minnesota Vikings, and the Metrodome with the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers football team.
The final budget for construction was $435 million, of which $175 million was paid by the Twins and $260 million was paid by Hennepin County by way of a 0.15% county-wide sales tax. An additional $120 million in infrastructure costs were split between the county ($90 million), the team ($20 million), Target Corporation ($4.5 million), the Minnesota Department of Transportation ($3.5 million) and the Minnesota Ballpark Authority ($2 million) bringing the project's total cost to US$555 million.
History
Background The Twins were in their 13th season in the Metrodome when they formally declared their desire to find a new home on July 18, 1994. Carl Pohlad, owner of the Twins, told the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (owners of the Metrodome) the current facility was "economically obsolete" due to changes in the economy of Major League Baseball. This declaration started a process which would culminate nearly 16 years later with the opening of Target Field. In the intervening years, many ideas, financing plans and possible locations came and went. The long process included threats of relocation, infighting between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and numerous pieces of legislation (both passed and not passed) at various levels of government. The process spanned the terms of three Minnesota governors, five mayors of Minneapolis or St. Paul, and even two long-tenured Twins managers.
Timeline
1961 – The original Washington Senators become the Minnesota Twins, and move to Metropolitan Stadium 1982 – Twins move to HHH Metrodome 1984 – Calvin Griffith sells Twins to Carl Pohlad 1994 – Pohlad declares Metrodome "economically obsolete" 1996 – First new ballpark plan fails to win support 1997 – Second new ballpark plan fails to win support; Minneapolis stadium contributions capped by referendum 1998 – Referendum to build ballpark in Greensboro, North Carolina fails 1999 – Referendum to build ballpark in St. Paul, Minnesota fails 2000 – Eventual site of Target Field identified 2001 – Twins are targeted for contraction by MLB 2002 – Hennepin County makes its first financing proposal; St. Paul options eliminated 2005 – Twins and Hennepin County reach financing agreement 2006 – Ballpark legislation enacted 2007 – Construction begins, land dispute settled 2010 – Twins move to Target Field
Source: Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
Early plans (1994–1999)
Immediately following Pohlad's 1994 declaration of intent, the Twins began making plans to build a new, retractable-roof stadium on a site just north of the Metrodome. Extensive conceptual work went into the site and stadium. At that time, the desired site was largely underused as surface parking, despite being adjacent to the Mississippi River, and located in the city's historic milling district. It included land which would be used for the Guthrie Theater (2006), Gold Medal Park (2007), and high-end housing.
1996 The riverfront plan formed the basis for all of the early discussions, and was first presented to the Minnesota Legislature during the 1996 session. It did not pass, largely due to widespread public sentiment that Pohlad, Minnesota's second most wealthy citizen, should pay for a new facility himself.
1997 After that failure, private negotiations between Pohlad and Governor Arne Carlson yielded a deal which was brought to the 1997 legislative session. The Twins had agreed to make an up-front financial contribution to kick-start the project, as well as sell 49% of team ownership to the state. This plan unraveled when local media reported that the complicated "contribution" to be made by the team amounted to a loan from Pohlad which was to be repaid with interest. Public outrage made passing this plan impossible.
Later that same year, the voters in Minneapolis overwhelmingly approved a referendum which prevented the city of Minneapolis from ever spending more than $10 million on a professional sports facility without approval from voters. This effectively removed the city from consideration as a financial partner for a new Twins ballpark.
1998 Meanwhile, the Twins’ Metrodome lease was set to expire in 1998. Governor Carlson felt the issue pressing enough that he called a special session of the Minnesota Legislature for that fall. In advance of the session, Pohlad announced he had signed a letter of intent to sell the team to a potential ownership group in North Carolina (Piedmont Triad) led by Don Beaver. The sale would be nullified if either a new stadium was approved in Minnesota, or a referendum to build a new stadium in Greensboro failed.
The Minnesota legislature not only defeated the stadium bill, but passed a resolution urging Congress to intervene in what it saw to be the worst practices of professional sports. Then, on May 5, 1998, voters in Greensboro rejected the ballpark referendum by a wide margin and the sale of the team was cancelled. Meanwhile, the public had come to view Pohlad very unfavorably.
1999 St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman jumped into this void with an enthusiastic pitch to move the Twins to his city. Several downtown locations were offered, the most likely option being adjacent to the new Xcel Energy Center (though another site considered was in the Lowertown neighborhood, a location which eventually became CHS Field, home of the St. Paul Saints). A referendum was scheduled to ask St. Paul voters to approve a sales tax increase for the city's contribution to the project, which would have been an open-air ballpark. Once again, Pohlad agreed to "sell" the team contingent upon the outcome of a referendum. This sale would have been to a group led by Minnesota-based billionaires Glen Taylor and Robert Naegele. Because Pohlad was so unpopular, it was thought that removing him from the transaction might help the prospects of the referendum, but it did not. On November 2, 1999, St. Paul voters rejected the plan by a large margin and the concept quickly evaporated.
Warehouse District site identified (2000)
The threat of the Twins moving to St. Paul had caught the attention of the business community in Minneapolis, which, up to this point, had been largely silent on the issue. During the run-up to the St. Paul referendum in 1999, an independent working group was formed by Minneapolis businessmen Bruce Lambrecht and Rich Pogin, representatives of a group of investors which owned the Rapid Park parking lot in the historic warehouse district on the northern edge of downtown Minneapolis. This group, initially known as Minnesota Urban Ballpark, and later as MN Twinsville, formed with the express purpose of bringing their land into the discussion about sites for a new Twins ballpark.
At first, the 8-acre site appeared to be an extremely unlikely location for a modern professional baseball facility. Besides being far smaller than most MLB sites (modern facilities typically require ), it was hemmed in by railroad tracks, a freeway, and two city streets passing on bridges. Though very near to Target Center, it was also adjacent to the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center (HERC), more commonly known as the city's "garbage burner," considered by some to be an undesirable neighbor for a ballpark.
But the site's perceived liabilities were easily offset by significant assets. Careful measurements were made by Lambrecht and local architect David Albersman, which proved that there was enough room for a baseball field and the amenities associated with a Major League ballpark. The site was adjacent to three large, underused parking ramps, and at the potential nexus of a light rail line then being planned (ultimately the Metro Transit Blue Line), and a commuter rail line also under consideration (the eventual Northstar Line). It was also controlled by a single owner who would be a willing seller. This fact alone would significantly simplify the process of acquisition by a governmental entity for a large-scale project. Owing largely to these logistical advantages, as well as an expansive view of the Minneapolis skyline, and the persistence of Lambrecht and Pogin's group, this site would eventually come to house Target Field.
In early 2000, Lambrecht's group commissioned a visit by Earl Santee of Populous (then known as HOK Sport) to evaluate whether the site had the potential to house Major League Baseball. His visit, independent of the Twins and all government entities, happened with no publicity whatsoever. Santee reviewed the site and reacted with skepticism, but saw no fatal flaws, nothing that made a ballpark impossible. He agreed to provide the working group with a concept drawing of a ballpark on that site, an image which was first published in August 2000, and quickly became the center of their ultimately successful campaign.
As Santee's dramatic drawing became more widely published, and Lambrecht and Pogin ramped up their lobbying efforts, others began to realize the advantages of the site. This included Mark Oyaas, founder of New Ballpark, Inc., a separate group of downtown Minneapolis business leaders, who sought to create a private financing plan for a stadium. They quickly settled on Rapid Park as their preferred ballpark site, which enhanced its visibility significantly. The Twins, however, completely ignored Rapid Park, and kept their distance from all of the ad hoc working groups. They would eventually go on record as believing that the Rapid Park site was too small and constrained to house the type of facility they sought to build.
Committees, contraction and competition (2000–2002)
2000 No fewer than three committees were created in 2000 to offer recommendations on how to proceed.
The city of Minneapolis created a panel of citizens known as C-17 to consider various financing models. Their final report, issued in February 2001, while not specifically recommending a site, heavily featured the concept drawing of the Rapid Park site on multiple pages. The committee recommended that the city continue its discussions with New Ballpark, Inc., in the hopes of finding a private financing solution. Even before the work of the C-17 was complete, another (unnamed) group of staff analysts within city government, working with the Metropolitan Community Development Agency (MCDA), formally recommended the Rapid Park site to the City Council.
Simultaneously, the Twins assembled a 130-member advisory group, dubbed Minnesotans for Major League Baseball, which met to discuss possible stadium alternatives. Their deliberations included a meeting with Bud Selig, commissioner of baseball, to discuss economic issues within the sport. Their final report did not recommend a site (and did not even mention Rapid Park), but did provide advice to the team on how to proceed in winning public approval for any plan.