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The Blueprint
Features include museum, ice rink, performance hall, and restaurant
Twin Cities location under consideration, groundbreaking set for 2026
ESG on board for design
A $70 million museum and performance hall that will celebrate Minnesota hockey could be under construction as soon as next year on a Twin Cities site to be determined.
The Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame announced Thursday that the facility will operate as a “120,000-plus square-foot interactive destination,” though the exact location is still a work in progress.
Andrew Heydt, president of the Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame, said in an interview that the hall of fame is “deeply in talks” on a couple of potential locations.
“We are talking with city and state officials and to protect those conversations we aren’t able to give the exact location, but it will be located in the metro,” said Heydt, who added that the project will have traveling exhibits and “activation outside of the brick-and-mortar building” to include the whole state.
ESG Architecture & Design has design duties and Consumer Science North (CSN) is the development partner.
“At some point we will link arms with a construction company,” Heydt said. “We have already started conversations, and we just need to select our best fit.”
ESG, which just came on board this summer, has hit the ground running with early design work and architectural renderings.
“It was a relatively quick initial design effort here, but we crammed a lot of really good ideas into a short amount of time,” Matthew Axtmann, an architect and partner at ESG, said in an interview Friday.
From a design standpoint, one of the goals was to “embody the energy and vision” of the Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame and to celebrate the “awe-inspiring” experience of hockey from the player and fan perspective, Axtmann said.
“What does it feel like to walk into Mariucci Arena for the first time to play a game? Or, if you’re a little kid and you go to your first Wild game, that feeling you get when you finally see the rink for the first time,” he added.
“It was that awe-inspiring moment that we really wanted to celebrate, and then layering into that were all these motifs and metaphors related to hockey,” including architectural forms that evoke the center line, sticks and pucks, and faceoffs.
Anchored by a 30,000-square-foot museum with a “Great Hall and five exhibit wings,” the project will include a “state-of-the-art sunken ice rink, a 20,000-square-foot performance hall, a hockey-themed restaurant and bar, and signature event spaces,” the hall of fame said.
According to a press release, “cutting-edge technology will immerse fans in the game through 360-degree digital experiences and hands-on exhibits where visitors can skate, shoot and relive historic moments.”
In addition, the hall will focus on “growing the game through grassroots development programs, traveling exhibits, youth education initiatives and an Ambassador Program projected to feature 250-plus Minnesota-born or developed individuals.”
“As we looked at the project overall, the museum is the driving force, but we want to make this a community hub,” Heydt said.
The project, he said, is in the “development stages” of fundraising.
“We are in a good place. We only see it accelerating now that we can finally be in the public’s eye and get in front of our corporate partners and donor opportunities,” he added.
The hall of fame plans to break ground in June 2026 and hold a grand opening in May 2028.
In the press release, the hall of fame said it has the backing of an advisory board of “some of Minnesota’s most celebrated hockey figures, an Ambassador Program featuring more than 100 men and women who have made a lasting impact on the game in Minnesota, and foundational support from the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.”
“The Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame is an important legacy project that will celebrate and preserve the state’s rich hockey history for generations to come,” Jamie Dinsmore, president and CEO of the Hockey Hall of Fame, said in a statement. “We’re excited to support their launch and look forward to seeing this vision come to life as a place where the stories, achievements, and people who shaped Minnesota hockey are honored.”
Minnesota hockey legend Lou Nanne said the project is “long overdue.”
“In my decades-long career in the game of hockey, I think I will know nearly every single individual who will be honored here,” Nanne said. “It’s an incredible way to recognize the people and stories that make Minnesota hockey so unique and deserving of this kind of permanent home.”