After issues with Minnesota's plan for electronic gaming to serve as a revenue source for the state’s share of the new Vikings stadium, the sports memorabilia tax, "once thought to be a fallback plan, may also be doomed," according to Stassen-Berger & Ragsdale of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. With six days left in the legislative session, senate leaders yesterday "declared the idea of taxing sports memorabilia nearly dead, because of the effect it might have on a single corporation: Target." Senate Taxes Committee Chair Rod Skoe said that because the tax would be "levied at the wholesale level, it would have a disparate impact on Target, which warehouses the sports memorabilia for its more than 1,700 U.S. stores in Minnesota." The uncertainty comes a week after Gov. Mark Dayton "demanded a new solution to the disappointing revenue from electronic charitable gambling." Legislators are now looking at a "wide range of other solutions, including corporate taxes, income taxes or even cigarette taxes to help fund the stadium" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 5/15).
NEW DIGS: Twin Cities developer Ryan Cos. said that it has reached a deal with the Minneapolis Star Tribune to "buy five square blocks in downtown Minneapolis, adjacent to the planned Vikings stadium," for a $400M mixed-use commercial and residential complex and public park. Ryan's proposal includes a "two-block green space leading into the planned entrance of the new stadium to the immediate east, a parking ramp, 1.16 million square feet of office space, 40,000 square feet of retail and 300 units of housing" (ST. PAUL PIONEER-PRESS, 5/15). Twins President Dave St. Peter yesterday said of the Vikings' new stadium design, "It's a gorgeous building. What's really cool about it is it's unique. There really isn't another structure in the National Football League, or anywhere else in American sport, that looks like that" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 5/15).
