Dive Brief:

• After Ryan Cos. told Minneapolis City Council members that a year delay for an architectural study would kill plans for a five-block downtown redevelopment next to the Minnesota Vikings' new stadium, a committee voted to let the company go ahead with knocking down the headquarters of the Star Tribune newspaper.
• Ryan's plans include a two-block public park next to the stadium that has had its official groundbreaking and will seat more than 90,000 for Vikings games and other events.
• The city's Heritage Preservation Commission wanted a study to see if the building was worthy of being kept as a landmark, but Rick Collins, vice president of development for Ryan, said holding off for a year for that study would make it "impossible" for the overall deal to work.

Dive Insight:

The city's decision to knock down Hubert H. Humphrey stadium and replace it with the modern-design new facility was partly a bid to spur downtown redevelopment, and it appears council members were on board with moving that ahead with the Ryan project. They imposed a couple of conditions on Ryan's plans – preserving six stone medallions on the facade of the newspaper building and having its history chronicled, but those will not delay work. The newspaper is moving to a new headquarters in 2015.