Things you don't know about Arden Hills

Posted at 8:34 AM on May 12, 2011 by Jon Gordon (8 Comments)
Filed under: Sports

In a few years Arden Hills, Minnesota could be one of those cities that national TV audiences hear a lot but know nothing about. You know, like Pontiac, Michigan, former home of the Detroit Lions stadium.

Heck, Minnesotans don't know much about it. So as the legislature considers whether to spend public money on a new Vikings stadium in Arden Hills, here are five things to know about the Twin Cities suburb:

1. The City of Arden Hills agreed to buy a portion of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant site in 2006, intending to develop the site for homes and commerce. Price tag: $45 million, according to Wikipedia.

2. Lakota People chilled out at Arden Hills' Lake Johanna on their way to Rice Lake for the annual harvest of wild rice.

3. Bethel University and Northwestern College call Arden Hills home.

4. Arden Hills is the corporate base of Land O'Lakes, which for some reason maintains a Twitter account.

5. Van Morrison wrote and recorded a song called "Linden Arden Stole the Highlights," which has absolutely nothing to do with Arden Hills. But hey, we're running out of material here.

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Comments (8)

To be fair, Pontiac is the former home of the Lions. They moved back to downtown Detroit in 2002.

Posted by Matt B | May 12, 2011 9:37 AM

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@Matt B. Thanks, you are right of course. I corrected the copy.

-Jon Gordon

Posted by Jon Gordon | May 12, 2011 9:49 AM

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"agreed to by" I think you mean Buy.

Though thank you for making it sound at least a little like the stadium isn't yet a sure thing... Most places make it sound like all the funding is there, but then those same news reports seem to fail to mention the legislature still has to pony up 300 million, and there is still potentially another 60 million that needs to come from some where.

So there is still hope people will come to their senses and get over the "new stadium smell" and realize this is a terrible location for a stadium.

Posted by jon | May 12, 2011 10:06 AM

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@jon - thanks for catching the by/buy mistake. corrected. 2 strikes on me.

-Jon Gordon

Posted by Jon Gordon | May 12, 2011 10:18 AM

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Maybe instead of Pontiac you should use Foxborough, Massachusetts, the home of the New England Patriots. Foxborough is 22 miles from Boston, 18 miles from Providence, RI, and has a population of 16,000.

Posted by Jeff | May 12, 2011 11:00 AM

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I drove through this area daily for just over 25 years. The place where US 10 joins up with I 694 and Snelling was a hazardous mess nearly every morning. It will only get worse with the development a football stadium will probably bring.

Major highway improvements are already needed, and it would be more than just making a few roads wider. I think you would need to resolve the fact that you have two major highways and Snelling all converging at that spot. Lots of bridges and interchanges, I would think.

Posted by John P. | May 12, 2011 12:18 PM

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John P. - There is already a MNDOT project underway to fix that mess... Don't know how the new stadium will effect that.

Posted by jon | May 12, 2011 3:44 PM

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The City of Arden Hills never agreed to buy a portion of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant site. It agreed that as part of an early transfer process to be the pass thru from the Federal Government to a developer who wanted to purchase the land for commerical, office, retail and homes. This development would have created 46,000 to 52,000 car trips a day, -every day.

Posted by Jim | May 13, 2011 6:18 PM

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