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New Jersey Developer Buys Vikings for $600M

MINNEAPOLIS-Zygmunt Wilf of Garden Commercial Properties hopes to build a new football stadium that would be the centerpiece of a larger development. He is looking at various sites in the Twin Cities area.

By Jim McCartney | Updated on May 25, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS-New Jersey-based real estate developer Zygmunt Wilf’s $600-million deal to buy the Minnesota Vikings was unanimously approved Wednesday by the National Football League’s 32 owners. Texas businessman Red McCombs sold the team, which he has owned since buying it for $246 million in 1998.

McCombs has been frustrated in getting public support for a new stadium for the team, at one point looking into moving the team. Wilf, who would like to see a new stadium as the centerpiece for a larger development, says he will not move the team.

Wilf pledged at a news conference Wednesday the team would “be in the Minneapolis area forever,” according to the National Football League’s website. He said he is in negotiations with various sites in the Twin Cities area, not just one in Blaine that had been the focus of McCombs’ efforts. Wilf said he favors an open-air stadium so the team can create a home field advantage due to the cold, late fall climate. Before moving into the Metrodome in the early 1980s, the Vikings played outdoors at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

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