The project to tear down the Metrodome and build a new downtown football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings is well underway.
Hammes Co., based in Madison, was selected by the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority from more than a dozen applicants to serve as the authority’s owner’s representative on the project, the Star Tribune reports.
The stadium authority also hired Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. to conduct an environmental impact study on the 33-acre stadium site.
What will this gleaming new stadium look like? Architects soon will begin dreaming it up. Board members also gave the authority staff the go-ahead to solicit bids for architectural services and construction management services before they next meet on Aug. 24, the Star Tribune says.
The proposal for a retractable roof is still open for discussion, officials say, KSTP reports. But it would be a pricey add-on, and expensive to maintain.
The team this month is putting down $50 million to get the whole $1 billion stadium project under way, WCCO reports. The team aims to have the new downtown stadium open by 2016. Project managers aim to keep it on schedule and on budget. Each year of delay would cost another $50 million, WCCO reports:
