Jim Les, I never misunderstood you or misunderstood your attitude towards this project. (Actually it's St. Paul which makes it more miraculous
). Perhaps people forgot that you are an architect/urban planner and that your attitude would be different than the typical man on the street.
Yes, the City in the end controls what happens or maybe the people that own the land which makes the potential for it being disjointed more likely. In any case, my experience was zero until I saw the marvelous downtown of St. Paul (repititous, I know) and what it did for that town is amazing. The arena was a small part. Without seeing what was done, no one can really understand what I had in mind and what I think Jim Les had in mind. It is VERY ambitious.
The area CAN be special. I don't have a clue how it can be done given the City doesn't even own the land. Until something happens that really doesn't fit in a coherent way, there is nothing wrong with what has been done so far. We don't have an unlimited budget.
Let's build the dang arena and get over the biggest hump. That's the immediate challenge and it is not guaranteed. The more ambitious ideas cannot be pursued without an arena.