Vikings Stadium Construction Is Halfway Done
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Crews building the Minnesota Vikings' new home are crossing the project's 50-yard line. The $1 billion stadium is now halfway finished.
From the sky, you can see it's really starting to take shape. The structural concrete is 80 percent done. And the crew of 900 will soon be even bigger as they wrap up the outdoor construction and start to focus on the inside.
Its highest peak stretches 269 feet in the air, making this goliath of a structure hard to miss in the Minneapolis skyline.
A year ago, crews were removing parts of the demolished Metrodome. Today, the stadium is almost 50 percent complete.
"We're starting to frame walls on the main concourse for concessions bathrooms," Dave Manzell with Mortenson Construction said.
And that concourse will be two to three times as wide as the ones in the Metrodome, and views of the game will never be more than a glance away.
"You can actually be on the concourse and still look out and if something exciting happens you can still see down to the field from most vantage points," Manzell said.
About 3,500 tons of steel erected and more than $400 million of work has been done to date. Project managers say more than 210 Minnesota-based companies will help construct the new stadium, 90 percent of contractors are also Minnesotans.
"We're very proud of the fact that this has been great for the local economy," said Vikings President Mark Wilf.
Gallery: Vikings Stadium Project 50 Percent Done
Mark Wilf says they are proud of the fact that 55 businesses owned by women and 33 owned by minorities have had a hand in the construction.
"We think it's the best design it's going to be the best NFL stadium in the United States," Wilf said.
The new stadium will be one of a kind, on top something designed to keep snow from falling off the building.
"The snow deflector is designed to break up that snow and drop it in a snow gutter," Manzell said.
From there, a snow melt system will heat it up and dump it into a storm sewer.
"It's going to be a great building for the fans to enjoy for a lot of years to come," Wilf said.
Minnesota workers and companies have truly benefited from the building of the stadium. The economic impact is more than $600 million of development in the area. So far, the project is on schedule to be completed by July of 2016.
