The Minnesota Vikings came within one game of becoming the first team to play on their home field in the Super Bowl. Instead, it was the Philadelphia Eagles—the team that knocked off the Vikings in the NFC Championship Game—who celebrated on the field at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
For long-suffering Vikings fans, the failure to reach the Super Bowl for the first time in over 40 years will linger until at least September, when a new season dawns, full of promise. For the team itself, that sense of renewal is coming much sooner.
In the coming weeks, the Vikings will officially move into their new official headquarters and training facility in Eagan, MN. Two years after the opening of U.S. Bank Stadium, the Twin Cities Orthopedics (TCO) Performance Center will be the site of all Vikings corporate business, as well as training camp and weekly practices.
The 33-acre complex, which began construction in 2016, has four outdoor practice fields and an indoor practice facility. Its on-site stadium will host community events and high school athletics. The complex also houses a sports medicine center, a Vikings museum and a team store.
For the past 52 years, the Vikings held training camp at Minnesota State University Mankato for training camp, while the team practiced for the past 36 years at Winter Park in Eden Prairie.
“We’re very excited to have a building like this to move into the 21stCentury for our players, for the fans to come out here and for the community,” Vikings owner and chairman Zygi Wilf said in November. “We hope to have high school sports here, elementary school sports and have the kids come out with their parents to visit the [Vikings museum]. This is a great addition to the community, and we’re very happy to see it going up.”
The football facility, with its spacious locker, training and weight rooms and an auditorium for film study – antiquated Winter Park did not have a permanent film room — is only the beginning for the Eagan site. Over the next 15 years, Wilf hopes to add a commercial space on the remaining 200-acres of land similar to Patriot Place in Foxboro and recent projects in Jacksonville and Green Bay, with a hotel, restaurants and retail shopping.
According to an October story by Star Tribune, the partnership with Twin Cities Orthopedics goes well beyond naming rights:
In addition to the Vikings’ 277,000-square-foot headquarters building (compared to 138,000 at Winter Park), Twin Cities Orthopedics is near completion with two buildings it expects to be cutting-edge.
The main clinic, set across a parking area from the Vikings’ project, will be a 76,000-square-foot, three-story facility with physical therapy on the first floor, a clinic and a surgery center on the third floor with seven operating suites. Steps away and overlooking the south side of the outdoor stadium is the 22,000-square-foot sports performance center.
The center run by TCO will focus on brain health, vision and reaction training, state-of-the-art muscle and tendon recoveries, psychology and regenerative medicine. Inside will be 5,000 square feet of turf, fitness, yoga and Pilates classes, a basketball court, dance training, sports massages, studios.
The project is being constructed on the site of the former headquarters of Northwest Airlines.
Rendering courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings.
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