The Midway Walmart is a former K-Mart, with all that implies. It’s a great place to go if you want a look at customer service from the old East Germany. It’s basically a small Walmart, with fewer groceries and more inner-urban dysfunction.
And now, via Fred Melo at the PiPress:
More than a rumor, not quite a fact: Walmart has at least kicked the tires on the prospect of leaving St. Paul’s Midway and opening in the former Rice Street Sears, which has room for an ample grocery. The degree to which they’re seriously considering it? I don’t know.
— FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) April 3, 2019
My fearless (and likely balderdash) prediction: both sites will sit, unchanged, for the next five years.
Then, Major League Soccer (or at least the Minnesota club) will fold, and all three sites will sit vacant (or blighted, in Walmart’s case) for a decade or two while various inner-city power interests argue for decades.
If the State Legislature had any brains, they’d snap up the Rice Street Sears store, build a skyway across Rice Street, and convert the building into a no-frills barracks. All legislators would be required to sleep in a cot every night the legislature is in session – mandatory bed checks – and eat every meal in the lunch room (staffed by public high school lunch ladies). We could pay for it with saved Per Diems in no time. Plus, they’d have an incentive to finish up so they could go home and not come back.
Soccer will do fine here… before you know it, it will be 2040, we’ll all be 72, and the Loons will have a 20 years history in the venue.
I like the way JD thinks.
Just to keep our heads here:
the Twins are the only major league team to win World Series championships (2-1) in the last 70 years
Mpls Lakers were NBA champion in 1954 then moved to LA
the Timberwolves have never made the championship game
Vikings made it to the Superbowl (not since 1977) but lost 4 times
the North Stars made it to the Stanley Cup twice and lost
The Wild have never made it to the Stanley Cup
Why would a MN Soccer team deliver anything but bitter disappointment to the fans? So we’ve a 20 year legacy of failure to anticipate?
Mac – But you forgot the Lynx!
One of these days, people are going to need to realize that street grids and homes built in the days of streetcars (and no cars) are going to need to be updated for modern lifestyles, and the cold hard truth is that this probably means tearing out a lot of old homes and businesses. The alternative is to not do so, in which case half the old homes and businesses will burn down after being used as crack houses like they do in Detroit, Gary, and the South Side of Chicago.
Regarding the soccer team, my cynical prediction is that it will always have a few thousand dedicated fans and visiting children’s teams watching, and that it will never make the big time, but taxpayers will end up subsidizing them the way they’ve been subsidizing all of the other teams.
BTW, the first five championships of the Lakers were here. Took ’em over a decade to get used to the smog and start winning in LA, too.
All legislators would be required to sleep in a cot every night the legislature is in session – mandatory bed checks – and eat every meal in the lunch room (staffed by public high school lunch ladies). We could pay for it with saved Per Diems in no time.
But . . . but then we wouldn’t be able to attract any high quality candidates! Who would put up with this? It is likely that the mandatory bed checks would devolve into #MeToo hijinx, or worse.
The team isnt going to fold Mitch for one reason. It is being financed by Bill McGuire. Plus the team has an insanely loyal following and MLS teams dont fold, its not like the NASL back in the 70s and 80s. They expanded right and are drawing better crowds than the NHL nationwide.
Also, for what its worth, Allianz Field was 100% privately financed.
^ What POD said. Bill McGuire, the Pohalds, and Glen Taylor. This isn’t the old days of American pro soccer where the teams were owned by 2nd tier deci-millionaires.
Another thing is, millennial hipsters are very into soccer. Following some team in the premier league is a signifier of higher culture for them.
POD, yes and no. They got the land, a former bus lot/barn, for basically free from the government, exemptions from rules requiring adequate parking and transportation, and are tax exempt for ten years after completion. That’s a lot of help from the government, even if checks weren’t being written.
Another thing is, millennial hipsters are very into soccer.
Its the only thing I have in common with them, I swear Im the only conservative millenial that likes soccer, but I also like the other 3 major sports and hockey. And I dont get up at 6am to watch Premier League soccer on Saturdays. I like my sleep. And I dont look down on people who dont like soccer. The elitism of the vast majority of fans is disgusting. All Ill say is that if you can watch hockey, give soccer a shot.
You can take comfort, PoD, in that my brother is probably the only conservative boomer that likes soccer. He even takes road trips to other cities to see the US world/americas cup matches.