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Will Downtown East Flourish From $1B Vikings Stadium?

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis is just one year away from completion.

And supporters of the $1 billion Minnesota Vikings stadium made a lot of development promises to get it built. But did they deliver?

Twelve months before the scheduled opening of the stadium, the huge Vikings facility is 65 percent complete.

And so are the early promises that the $1 billion stadium would generate millions of dollars of private business development around it.

"It's significant, and it's no longer speculation," Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chair Michele Kelm-Helgen said.

The MSFA reports $800 million in new investment on the blocks around the area where the old Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome once stood.

"It kind of sat like an island," Kelm-Helgen said. "It looked like a spaceship that had landed. It was really hard to walk to, it was never connected to the neighborhood and it never generated anything around it."

The new stadium is already showing a different result. Among the projects underway: A Wells Fargo office tower and condominiums; a Radisson Red Hotel; residential buildings; a 4-acre public park and a renovated Minneapolis Armory -- repurposed as a music venue and possible Vikings activities center.

Mortenson Construction Company reports 1,200 workers are now on the stadium site, and $550 million of project work is completed.

This is all amid hopes of a renaissance for 100 blocks of Minneapolis downtown east.

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