Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission Chair Ted Mondale yesterday said that the Vikings, the state of Minnesota and Ramsey County are “approaching ‘stalemate’ status over how to pay for about $131 million in highway and road improvements over and above the $1.1 billion cost of building a stadium complex in Arden Hills,” according to Dave Orrick of the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS. Mondale said, "The state has been very clear: We'll do $300 million. It's 300, 300, 300. Nothing more. The rest has got to come from Ramsey and [Vikings Owner] the Wilfs." Ramsey County Commissioner Tony Bennett said that the county “can't commit any more than the $350 million it's already offered from a 0.5 percent countywide sales tax.” The Vikings also “appear unwilling to offer up more than the $407 million they brought to the deal, but the team doesn't see things as deadlocked.” Vikings VP/Public Affairs & Stadium Development Lester Bagley said, "We have laid out a transportation finance plan to pay for the roads for the Arden Hills site. It's a user-based finance proposal. The intent is to capture transportation revenues at the stadium or near the stadium." Bagley “declined to go into details but said part of the plan would raise money from taxes or fees on spending around the stadium that wouldn't have happened were it not for a stadium being there.” Mondale, who “was shown the plan,” said that “some revenue generators could include parking fees and extra money from events such as the Super Bowl, which Zygi Wilf has said he's confident he can land if the 65,000-seat, retractable-roof stadium is built” (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 6/8).
