Ramsey County's “third stab at a financing plan” for a Vikings stadium in Arden Hills “relies on revenue from parking lot naming rights, parking fees, an admissions surcharge, stadium sales taxes and taxes collected on ancillary developments,” according to Olson & Kaszuba of the Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE. The proposal is “projected to raise $20.6 million per year from the assortment of user fees.” Ramsey County Board Chair Rafael Ortega's name “appears on an unsigned ‘final draft’ of a letter that is expected to be submitted to Gov. Mark Dayton and legislative sponsors Friday.” But unlike “previous county proposals, the new one doesn't rely on countywide sales, liquor or food tax increases.” The Ramsey County letter “proposes capturing seven streams of revenue.” Ortega's letter “didn't provide detail to the revenue ideas, but said together they would raise $618 million over the 30 years needed to pay off the $1.1 billion project” (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 2/10). In St. Paul, Frederick Melo notes Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak's plan to finance a proposed Vikings stadium “would raise game day downtown parking meter rates to $25.” In addition, it would “add a tax on football tickets and extend existing restaurant and hotel taxes decades past their sunset date.” But one thing the package “would not do … is cover the $300 million the city has committed to the stadium project.” The plan “comes up $55 million short” (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 2/10). Meanwhile, Minnesota State Sen. Roger Reinert introduced a proposal Thursday to move the Vikings to Duluth by “planting a new stadium on the site of an old U.S. Steel plant.” It is “far from certain whether the Vikings would leave a metropolitan area with 3 million residents for one with about 280,000.” It is also not known if a Duluth stadium “would be utilized by other events as much as a Twin Cities stadium” (STARTRIBUNE.com, 2/9).
