Minnesota Vikings Complete Major Land Purchase In Eagan

The Minnesota Vikings appear to have taken a major step towards moving their team headquarters from its current location in Eden Prairie, where they have been headquartered since 1981.

The team has purchased a large chunk of land in Eagan, Minnesota, with the intention of turning it into their new headquarters and practice facility. The land is the home of the former headquarters of Northwest Airlines, which was cleared out when Northwest merged with Delta Airlines.

At the present time, the Vikings are operating out of three different locations, two of which are in Eden Prairie and one that's in downtown Minneapolis. The hope is that this new purchase will allow them to replace the Eden Prairie facilities and consolidate their operations into one place. They will also be moving their practice facility to Eagan, which will allow it to be used by one of the two teams participating in Super Bowl 52, which U.S. Bank Stadium will host in February of 2018.

The land is approximately six miles from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, just south of Interstate 494.

The team also apparently plans to build a 10,000-seat stadium on the site, which some think may signal the end of the team holding their Training Camp at Minnesota State University in Mankato. Personally, I hope that's not the case. . .while I haven't been to Mankato for Training Camp myself, the team has been there for a very long time, and everyone that I've heard talk about it says that it's really a great experience. Hopefully the team can see their way clear to continuing to hold Training Camp in Mankato.

While the team has, apparently, not yet officially decided that they're going to move their facilities, but according to Ben Goessling of ESPN, the team "privately hopes" that everything can be ready in time for Super Bowl 52. If that's going to happen, a decision is likely going to have to come fairly quickly.