You want to live 24/7 Vikings?

[purplefaithful]

Apartment renters can join the Minnesota Vikings' Eagan neighborhood next summerThe team owners expect to have 261 units on the market.The live/work/play campus long envisioned by the Vikings' owners for their new Eagan campus is closing in on the trifecta.

They've built the work and the play with the new headquarters for the NFL football team and their new e-sports franchise Røkker. There's also the full-service Twin Cities Orthopedics clinic and lots of walking and biking paths among the newly planted trees on nearly 200 acres.
Now comes the living part: Omni Hotels and Resorts will open its first Minnesota location there this fall, a 14-story, 320-room stunner. By next summer, 261 apartment units will open to renters.
"All of our projects here we've been able to keep on time and on budget," said Don Becker, who heads real estate and development for the Vikings. "They're happening pretty much the way we laid it out in the initial plan."
That was back in 2016, when the Eagan City Council approved the multi­phase Viking Lakes project by MV Eagan Ventures, operated by Mark, Zygi and Leonard Wilf.
The Wilfs bought the Vikings with money from their successful New Jersey real estate enterprise. The team moved its offices to Eagan from its longtime Eden Prairie quarters in 2018.
The development is rising on acreage near Dodd Road and Interstate 494 that once was the global headquarters of Northwest Airlines. Those office buildings are gone, but the new development has kept the surrounding wetlands and verdant contours of the parcel.
The Omni hotel will connect to the outdoorsy campus in various ways, including a lounge with an outdoor terrace, an outdoor pool, a full-service spa, a 7,500-square-foot ballroom and a 4,410-square-foot event center.
The hotel will feature six two-story hospitality lounges placed on every other floor with couches, communal tables, a fireplace and kitchens.
Rents for the apartments haven't been announced, and there's been no marketing yet for the complex, but Becker said he's already heard from wannabe tenants and put them on the waiting list. Many of the units will have two bedrooms, and tenants will get an underground parking spot.
Renters will have plenty of play opportunities with a full-size indoor lap pool, an outdoor leisure pool, yoga rooms, a golf simulator and bowling alley. There will be party rooms and a clubhouse, and eventually tennis and pickleball courts.
"We just think this area is going to be a destination," Becker said. "I'm seeing it already with people who show up on campus to bike or walk with their kids."
Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire said the development so far has been thoughtful and well-coordinated, with disagreements easily smoothed out. He said he's eager to find out the level of interest in the apartments and whether residents relocate.
More phases are planned with additional apartments, offices, retail space and a restaurant with entertainment. Becker said specifics haven't been determined, but big-box stores won't be part of it. The offices will offer "flexible space" to reflect the new reality that employees won't be going into the office every day. An employee would call a day in advance to have their space set up for them, then their office equipment would be stored to let someone else use the space the next day.

Maguire expects the campus site to get busier with the hotel opening and the eventual arrival of entertainment.
https://www.startribune.com/apartment-re...572053462/

[Guest]

Its a well planned out space. I'm sure it will be successful once the pandemic settles down and they continue to build it out. Having hotel and restaurant facilities right there at the Vikings headquarters and facility is going to make conducting business as an organization so much easier logistically, not to mention the impressive aspect of the Viking Lakes area. Pretty neat. Its also only 10 miles from the airport. Its another destination area for suburbanites.

[Guest]

Ann Kim, the James Beard award-winning chef/co-owner of Young Joni and Pizzeria Lola in Minneapolis, is turning her attention to the suburbs.
Eagan, specifically, where she will place her imprint on the primary restaurant in the Omni Viking Lakes Hotel.
“We like to utilize local partnerships whenever possible,” said Devin Burns, vice president of rooms and food & beverage of Omni Hotels & Resorts. “We did our research, then we had the fun experience of tasting the food at Young Joni. Then we met Ann, and that was the icing on the cake. We love her passion, and her view of hospitality. We were lucky that we could talk her into it.”
Kim will be overseeing Kyndred Hearth, and fans of her work will recognize her touches at every turn.
The restaurant’s centerpiece will be same copper-clad wood-burning oven — imported from France — that anchors Young Joni and Pizzeria Lola.
Along with Kim’s wood-fired pizzas, the seasonal menu will focus on handmade pastas and “other things that I’ve never been able to do at the other restaurants,” she said. Kim said she’s also excited about the prospect of serving her first breakfast menu, which will feature what she described as “twists on what I love to eat.”
That includes airy ricotta pancakes, a variation on the egg-and-cheese sandwich that sustained her when she lived in New York City (“Mine will kick it up a notch and start with a Japanese milk bun,” she said) and a souped-up version of the Korean rice porridge that was a childhood staple that will call upon jasmine rice, locally sourced wild rice, mushrooms, pickled vegetables, fried ginger and fresh herbs.
“I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner,” said Kim. “It’s like a savory oatmeal that’s good for you.”
The hotel, the company’s first in Minnesota, is part of a multiphase mixed-use project being developed by Minnesota Vikings owners Mark, Zygi and Leonard Wilf. The development includes the team’s headquarters.
The 200-seat restaurant and lounge will be located on the ground floor of the 14-story, 320-room hotel, which is being designed by ESG Architecture & Design of Minneapolis. The restaurant’s patio will offer views of TCO Performance Center, the Vikings’ practice facility.
“We hope that this becomes a destination for the people living in the surrounding neighborhood, and not just serving as an amenity for the hotel’s guests,” said Kim. “It’s going to be a stand-alone restaurant that happens to be in a hotel.”
Dallas-based Omni followed the same think-local strategy at its property adjacent to the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys in Frisco, Tex. The company recruited prolific Dallas chef Nick Badovinus (“the enfant terrible of the Dallas dining scene,” according to D Magazine) to run the hotel’s Neighborhood Services restaurant.
Kim is certainly busy. She and her spouse and business partner, Conrad Leifur, are working to open their fourth restaurant, Sooki & Mimi, in Uptown Minneapolis. They also operate Hello Pizza in Edina.
“This opportunity was the best of both worlds,” said Kim. “Omni and the Vikings are saying, ‘We trust your brand.’ They’re putting up the capital, and doing the legwork, and that’s a gift. I can focus on what I do best and not worry about everything else that’s involved with operating a restaurant.”
Another lure? Kim, who grew up in nearby Apple Valley, describes herself as a “die-hard” Vikings fan.
Omni operates 60 luxury hotels and resorts in the U.S. The Eagan hotel and restaurant are scheduled to open in October.

[Guest]

I can't wait to check it out someday in the future.