The Wild are "extending their lease" at Xcel Energy Center through '35 -- a "decade longer than previously agreed to," according to a front-page piece by Frederick Melo of the ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS. Among the benefits of the lease extension for the Wild is that their rent to the city "will drop by more than half" -- falling from nearly $9M per year to just upward of $3.5M. City officials said that the city "will not lose money, as those rents pay off the construction bonds" that allowed Xcel Energy Center to open in September '00. The city last month "renegotiated the interest rates" on $48M in Xcel-related bonds on the team's behalf, "extending the repayment over a longer period of time rather than the next six years of the original lease." Wild Exec VP & CFO Jeff Pellegrom said that the team "shouldered the highest lease payments" of all 31 NHL teams in '00, while teams in "comparable NHL markets pay rents" between $3.5-3.8M annually. The new lease "will bring the Wild into that range." Wild Owner Craig Leipold said that at no time during the lease negotiations did the team "suggest relocating to another city" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 4/17).
RETURN ON INVESTMENT: Leipold said that lowering the annual lease payments enables the Wild to "invest in the building, potentially including the RiverCentre parking ramp." In Minneapolis, James Walsh notes it "isn't clear what the team intends to do regarding the parking ramp." The RiverCentre ramp reopened in November '18 after being "shut down for six months for emergency repairs" (Minneapolis STAR TRIBUNE, 4/17).
