County, Twins Bumping Into Each Other Over New Ballpark

Twins, Hennepin County Butting Heads Over Ballpark Construction

On Friday, “moments after the Twins outlined how they were moving toward designing” their new ballpark, a Hennepin County official “disclosed that a separate county advisory committee formed to work on the project’s design process would be hiring its own consultant,” according to Mike Kaszuba of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. County officials said that they had “agreed with the Twins to let the team hire an array of project officials, including a construction manager, project manager, and lead and local architects.” But Deputy County Administrator Richard Johnson said that the Twins needed to “‘understand the limited nature of the county’s consent’ and that the county needed to be allowed to attend candidate interviews and have input before any final selections were made.” He added that the “bigger issues facing the project — the stadium’s design and construction — would be subject to a yet-to-be-negotiated development agreement between the county and the team.” Hennepin County is providing construction money through a countywide sales tax, the Twins are in charge of construction and the Minnesota Ballpark Authority will own the ballpark (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 8/19).

FAN INPUT: In St. Paul, Aron Kahn reported the Twins asked their fans to post “opinions on how their new stadium should look and feel” on the team’s Web site. In six weeks, about 2,500 people have responded. Many of the comments “scorned the size of the seats and the long rows in the Metrodome and begged the Twins not to repeat those specifications.” Twins President Dave St. Peter said that his “personal favorites” among the ten new MLB ballparks recently visited by team officials are PNC Park, AT&T Park and Citizens Bank Park (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 8/19).