Balk: A Geographic Analysis of the Impact of a New Professional Sports Stadium on Residential Real Estate Values in Minneapolis

Abstract

The City of Minneapolis, Minnesota and Hennepin County, Minnesota are among the many government entities that have committed taxpayer funds to finance a professional sports stadium. Both the city and county approved the financing of Target Field in 2007. The new stadium is now the home of the Minnesota Twins, a Major League Baseball franchise. Previous empirical studies have offered differing opinions on whether a new professional sports stadium has an effect on residential real estate values in the surrounding area. This thesis uses a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze the effect that Target Field had on residential real estate values in the City of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Using GWR analysis of a hedonic real estate price model, this thesis concludes that being close to Target Field had a significantly positive effect on residential real estate values in Minneapolis in 2016. However, when applying the same model to real estate sales data from a year prior to the approval of Target Field, properties in the vicinity of the location of the ballpark may have been more valuable before the ballpark was built then they were in the years that followed its opening.