U.S. Bank Stadium
U.S. Bank Stadium is an indoor multi-purpose stadium located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. Built on the former site of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, the stadium opened in 2016 and is the home venue of the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League. It also hosts early season college baseball games of the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers.
The Vikings played at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome from 1982 until its closure in 2013; during construction, the Vikings played two seasons at the open-air Huntington Bank Stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota.
On June 17, 2016, U.S. Bank Stadium was deemed substantially complete by contractor Mortenson Construction, five weeks before the ribbon-cutting ceremony and official grand opening on July 22. Authority to use and occupy the stadium was handed over to the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority. The Vikings played their first preseason game at U.S. Bank Stadium on August 28; the home opener of the regular season was in week two against the Green Bay Packers on September 18, a 17–14 victory.
It was the first fixed-roof stadium built in the NFL since Ford Field in Detroit, which opened in 2002. As of March 2015, the overall budget was estimated to be $1.061 billion, with $348 million from the state of Minnesota, $150 million from the city of Minneapolis, and $551 million from the team and private contributions. U.S. Bank Stadium hosted Super Bowl LII won by the Philadelphia Eagles on February 4, 2018, the ESPN X Games on July 19–22, 2018, and the NCAA Final Four won by the Virginia Cavaliers on April 6–8, 2019. In 2023, The Athletic ranked U.S. Bank Stadium as the top NFL venue.
Design
While the Vikings' owners wanted an outdoor stadium, the state and local governments would only provide funding for an indoor stadium capable of hosting major events like the Super Bowl and the Final Four. A retractable roof was the trend in 2010s football stadiums. However, retractable roof facilities are not typically designed for the roof to be opened and closed in sub-freezing conditions. When built in temperate climates, retractable roofs are generally kept closed throughout the winter months, both to reduce the stress on the roof and its components and also to reduce or eliminate the need to winterize the stadium's interior. In contrast, to be of any competitive on-field advantage to the Vikings, a retractable roof facility would have needed to be designed to operate in a Minnesotan winter so as to allow the Vikings to play a home game outdoors during the NFL playoffs. Eventually, this design was deemed too expensive.Architecture firm HKS, Inc., also responsible for the Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium and the Indianapolis Colts' Lucas Oil Stadium, decided to go for a lightweight translucent roof and glazed entrances with giant pivoting doors, aiming to get as much natural light from the outside as possible. The roof is made up of 60% Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a fluorine-based clear plastic, and is the largest in North America, spanning supplied and installed by the firm Vector Foiltec. ETFE's low R-factor and the roof's slanted design, inspired by Nordic vernacular architecture, allows the stadium to endure heavy snow loads. Snow accumulates in areas that are more safely and easily accessible, and also moves down the slanted roof into a heated gutter, the water from which drains to the nearby Mississippi River.
The translucent roof and large wall panels also give fans a view of downtown Minneapolis. The glass operable wall panels allow the stadium to experience some of the outdoor elements while providing protection from the snow, rain, and the cold winter weather. The stadium is aligned northwest and the elevation at street level is approximately above sea level.
Conservation groups – including the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the Audubon Society – requested a "bird-friendly" design of the stadium's exterior using slightly less transparent bird-safe glass. Designers instead opted to use highly reflective glass for aesthetic reasons. The reflective glass, combined with the stadium's location along the Mississippi Flyway migration route, has resulted in a large number of bird deaths, double than any other building in Minneapolis. A "bird fatality study" financed by the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority was completed in 2019. Recommendations include treating the glass to decrease reflectivity, especially in areas that reflect lots of vegetation, and turning off lights when migration rates are at their highest.
Capacity
The usual seating capacity is 66,860, which can be expanded to 73,000.Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority is the public authority that owns and operates U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was established in 2012 by the Minnesota Legislature as the successor organization to the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which was established in 1977 to oversee the construction of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome; the MSFC owned and operated the Metrodome in a similar fashion to the MSFA. The MSFA initially oversaw the Metrodome until the stadium was demolished to make way for U.S. Bank Stadium in early 2014. Three of its five members are appointed by the Governor of Minnesota, with the remaining two being appointed by the mayor of Minneapolis.Public involvement in stadiums within the Twin Cities area has existed ever since interest in professional sports within the area started to grow in the early 1950s. The cities of Minneapolis and Bloomington formed the Metropolitan Sports Area Commission on August 13, 1954, to oversee the construction and operation of Metropolitan Stadium in the latter city, with the stadium opening in 1956. However, with the Minnesota Vikings dissatisfied by the state of the stadium in the 1970s, plans were devised for its replacement by local and state governments.
When the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission was formed in 1977, it absorbed the MSAC and took over the operations of Metropolitan Stadium; it would continue to do so until the end of 1981 with the Metrodome's opening the following year. The commission was composed of seven members, six of which were appointed by the Minneapolis City Council. The chair, however, was appointed by the Governor of Minnesota and could not reside in Minneapolis. The commission was abolished by the Minnesota Legislature as part of legislation that funded U.S. Bank Stadium in May 2012; its assets were transferred to the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority.
Metrodome lease
The Vikings' lease with the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, as signed by both parties in August 1979, kept them in the Metrodome until 2011. The lease was considered one of the least lucrative among NFL teams; it included provisions where the commission owned the stadium, and the Vikings were locked into paying rent until the end of the 2011 season. For several years prior to the Metrodome's demolition, however, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission waived the team's nearly $4 million rent. The Vikings paid the MSFC 9.5% of their ticket sales; the commission "reserve all rights to sell or lease advertising in any part of the Stadium," the team could not use the scoreboard for any ads, and the team did not control naming rights for the building. Though the Vikings received revenue from the sale of luxury suites during the Minnesota Twins baseball season, the commission controlled the limited parking and its revenue and paid the team 10% of all concession sales while retaining roughly 35% of concessions sold during Vikings games. The Vikings were 30th out of 32 NFL teams in local revenues in 2005. The Vikings, as well as the stadium's other tenants, continually turned down any proposals for renovating the Metrodome itself. A plan for a joint Vikings/University of Minnesota football stadium was proposed in 2002, but differences over how the stadium would be designed and run, as well as state budget constraints, led to the plan's failure. The university would eventually open its own TCF Bank Stadium in 2009.Downtown Minneapolis
From the outset, Zygi Wilf, a billionaire from New Jersey and principal owner of the Vikings since 2005, had stated he was interested in redeveloping the downtown site of the Metrodome no matter where the new facility was built. Taking into consideration downtown Minneapolis' growing mass transit network, cultural institutions, and growing condo and office markets, Wilf considered underdeveloped areas on Downtown's east side, centered on the Metrodome, to be a key opportunity and began discussing the matter with neighboring landholders, primarily the City of Minneapolis and the Star Tribune. An unrelated 2008 study explains that the effect of the media, in this case an uncritical Star Tribune, matters a great deal in helping a stadium initiative. As a result, once negotiations for a different location had been put aside, the Vikings focused on proposing a stadium that would be the centerpiece of a larger urban redevelopment project.Wilf's Vikings began acquiring significant land holdings in the Downtown East neighborhood around the Metrodome. In June 2007, the Vikings acquired four blocks of mostly empty land surrounding the Star Tribune headquarters from Avista Capital Partners for $45 million; it is also believed the Vikings have first right of refusal to later buy the paper's headquarters building. In May 2007, the Vikings also acquired three other downtown parking lots for a total of $5 million, and have made a bid for a city-owned, underground parking ramp next to the neighborhood's light rail station.
Proposal timeline
2007
On April 19, 2007, the MSFC and the Vikings unveiled their initial plans for the stadium and surrounding urban area, with an estimated opening of 2012. The plan included substantial improvements to the surrounding area, including an improved light rail stop, 4,500 residential units, hotels with a combined 270 rooms, of office space and substantial retail space.As of 2007, the stadium would have held approximately 73,600 people and was to have been complete by August 2011. The initial proposal did not have the final architectural design renderings, but did include key features that were to have been included in any final plan, including the plans for neighboring urban development. These included demands for a retractable roof, an open view of the surroundings, a glass-enclosed Winter Garden alongside the already-existing adjacent Metrodome light-rail stop, leafy urban square with outdoor cafés and dense housing around its edges, aesthetic improvements to roads connecting the stadium to nearby cultural institutions, and adaptive reuse of neighboring historic buildings. The roof would have allowed Minneapolis to remain a potential venue for the Super Bowl and Final Four, both of which had been held at the Metrodome. The proposed urban plan itself was received with cautious welcome.
The 2007 proposed cost estimate for the downtown Minneapolis stadium was $953.916 million. The total broke down to $616.564 million for the stadium, $200.729 million for a retractable roof, $58.13 million for parking, $8.892 million for adjacent land right-of-way, and $69.601 million to take into account inflation by 2010. The estimate compared to then-upcoming stadiums in Indianapolis at $675 million, Dallas at $932 million, and New York $1.7 billion. In addition, according to Wilf, taking into account the costs for the surrounding urban developments put forth in the proposal would have brought the estimated total to $2 billion. The estimated costs were based on projected 2008 construction and material costs, so it would have been possible that the stadium costs could have hovered near $1 billion if the Minnesota State Legislature had not approved the project in the 2008 session.
No proposals were made, at that time, for paying for the stadium. The MSFC and Vikings made initial pitches to the Minnesota State Legislature during the end of the 2007 session, but expected to make serious efforts during the 2008 legislative session. The Vikings proposed creating a Minnesota Football Stadium Task Force, which they expect would take 24 months to plan the stadium.