MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The landlords of the Metrodome voted unanimously Thursday to replace the snow-damaged roof of the venerable stadium, opting for a more time-consuming fix that could disrupt the Minnesota Vikings preseason schedule.
The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission approved a recommendation from engineers who said they worried that simply repairing several torn panels of the stadium’s Teflon roof wouldn’t be enough to prevent another failure.
Commissioners said they hoped the job would be done by Aug. 1 at an estimated cost of $18.3 million, with almost all of it expected to be covered by insurance. The NFL’s preseason schedule hasn’t been released, but the typical mid-August start could be affected if the roof work takes longer than the commission hopes.
In a statement, the Vikings said they support the roof replacement but said it “is not a long-term stadium solution” for them. They said they intended to continue pursuing state legislation to pay for and build a new stadium.
The roof collapsed in the early morning hours of Dec. 13 at the tail end of a snowstorm that pounded the region for about 24 hours straight. TV cameras stationed on the field captured footage of the roof giving way and snow pouring onto the field.
It was the fourth time in the Metrodome’s nearly 30-year history that heavy snow had caused the roof to fall, but the most recent collapse was 27 years ago. Metrodome officials initially hoped to get the tears repaired quickly, but difficult weather conditions made the job dangerous and slow-moving and ultimately forced the Vikings to move their last two home games of the season.
A game against the New York Giants scheduled for that Sunday was postponed a day and played in Detroit, and a week later against Chicago the Vikings moved to the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium for their first game outdoors in 30 years. They lost both games.
Commission Chairman Ted Mondale earlier estimated that full replacement could take as long as six months.
Engineers wrote that full replacement of the 10-acre roof was the only way to guard against another deflation from defects they might not have found. Several panels ripped under the weight of the snow, but many others appeared undamaged.
“We would not be able to certify that the roof membrane meets industry standard levels of safety without a complete replacement of the roof membrane,” one firm, Walter P. Moore and Associates, said in a report.
Another firm, Geiger Engineers, rated the probability of such defects dooming the roof again as “very high.”
Metrodome officials say BirdAir, joined by several other firms, needed several weeks to make the recommendation due to dangerous conditions on the roof. Several planned events have been canceled since the roof collapse, including hundreds of college baseball games, an ethnic New Year celebration and a monster truck rally.
The collapse have pushed questions about the Vikings’ future in Minnesota to the fore. The team had already been scheduled to play the final season of its lease there in 2011. The team has long pushed for a new stadium, but the state’s projected $6.2 billion budget deficit has complicated the equation.
State lawmakers have promised to bring forward a stadium bill soon that would include a proposed site, with up to four options including where the Metrodome now sits near downtown. Several commissioners in next-door Ramsey County are preparing a push for a former ammunition plant site in Arden Hills, north of St. Paul.
The commissioner pushing Arden Hills, Tony Bennett, said he envisions county taxpayers contributing at some level not yet decided.
The Vikings have said they would pay about one-third the cost of building a roofless stadium. Gov. Mark Dayton and most lawmakers have said they prefer a more expensive roofed or retractable-roof stadium that would be more versatile.
Dayton repeated Thursday in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio that he believes the Vikings should pay for at least a third to one-half of a stadium tab estimated at at least $700 million. Dayton said he believes the state’s share should come not from general taxpayers but by stadium users through fees on stadium purchases such as food and gear or through taxes on hotels and rental cars near the new stadium.
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