De La Salle field faces hurdles

by dennis geisinger

“We’re exceptionally optimistic,” said De la Salle High School’s Vice President for Planning Mike O’Keefe recently about the realization of his school’s long-contested plan to build a 750-seat football stadium and track on park land adjacent to its Nicollet Island location.

Yet O’Keefe’s experience must temper his optimism. Opponents of the school’s athletic facility have proved themselves as capable adversaries in the years it has taken to get a go-ahead, and now that the push for completion of its plans have brought that within reach, the entanglements of city politics may still catch at his feet.

According to a preview, provided by O’Keefe, of an article titled, “Athletic Field Close to Reality” that will appear in the October issue of the De La Salle High School newsletter, “While De La Salle has been asked to address a couple of remaining technical points before a building permit can be issued, there is no doubt that, over the past six weeks, the project has received critical support and significant approvals and votes from varying levels of governance.”

Yet within those “remaining technical details” is the kind of horse trading that can make the highly visible process of securing public land look ethically questionable. One of the final pieces in clearing the land for the stadium required a release of certain restrictions on a parcel controlled by the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board. In August, the Met Council rejected a land swap deal in exchange for the release.

De La Salle’s October newsletter says that on Aug. 22 “The Met Council unanimously voted that its Chair [Peter Bell] and Regional Administrator [Tom Weaver] be authorized to negotiate and execute with the MPRB an agreement whereby the Metropolitan Council would release the restrictive covenant. The recommendation also required that the MPRB provide a binding commitment, within 30 days, to identify additional and acceptable MPRB acreage that would be included in the regional park system as an exchange for the Met Council releasing its restrictions on Nicollet Island.”

The move has brought to the surface accusations involving lack of public disclosure and the use of taxpayer money to pay for land already funded in 1983 when the MPRB contracted with the Minneapolis Community Development Agency for a land exchange “to construct upon property adjacent to the De La Salle property an outdoor neighborhood recreational and athletic facility,” according to the agreement.

Friends of the Riverfront, a citizen and park user group, filed a lawsuit heard by the Minnesota State Court of Appeals on Sept. 19 asking that the City of Minneapolis and De La Salle comply with state law and explore alternatives before destroying natural or historic resources, citing, among other things, a need for opening up further negotiations to outside review.

Another appeal filed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, and the Friends of the Riverfront challenges the Minneapolis City Council’s decision to overrule the unanimous condemnation of the project by the Minneapolis Heritage Preservation Commission.
Others, including Friends of the Mississippi, remain adamant in their original views holding against the development.

“We are very much opposed to a stadium on Nicollet Island,” said Friends of the Mississippi River Executive Director Whitney Clark, “because it vacates a historic street and because of its negative impact on riverfront environment.”
Still, De La Salle remains confident that applying for a building permit will be its next step.

“If we wait for the the last court papers for lawsuits to be filed,” said O’Keefe, “we’d have to wait another hundred and eight years.”