The home of the Minnesota Vikings, the palace called U.S. Bank Stadium, will need roughly $280 million in repairs and upgrades to remain in "top condition" over the next decade, according to a report from The Star Tribune. That total includes a whopping $48 million next year.
The Vikings and Minnesota taxpayers make yearly deposits to the stadium's capital improvement fund, which reportedly has $16 million in the account currently. The stadium's audio-visual room, one of the key areas for U.S. Bank's production value for events, is projected to require $14 million in funding alone in upkeep costs per an architectural assessment put out on Friday, per The Star Tribune.
Kansas City-based Populous, an architectural firm specializing in stadiums and arenas, conducted the facility assessment on behalf of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority (MSFA), which oversees the seven-year-old building on behalf of Minnesota taxpayers. The MSFA paid $527,500 for the assessment.
Each area of the stadium was labeled good, fair or worn in the architectural assessment. Good condition meant well-kept. Fair condition related to some signs of needing work in the short-term future. Worn essentially means fix it now.
Areas labeled as worn down include weather stripping on doors, a damaged concession sign on the stadium's upper levels and the in-house, stadium TV distribution system. which is "nearing the end of its life."
In the Minnesota's proposed state budget from Governor Tim Walz there was a section that allotted $15.7 million to cover the first phase of the perimeter around the building.
MSFA chair Michael Vekich said, via The Star Tribune, that he expects the group responsible for monitoring the stadium maintenance to ask the state's legislature for $48 million in 2024.
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The legislature also is discussing the governor's proposal to finish paying the outstanding $377 million in bond debt on the Vikings' palatial structure using the balance in the stadium's reserve fund of $368 million. That fund is supplemented with revenue from taxes on pull tabs, including electronic pull tabs legalized in 2012 to help curb the stadium debt.
The $1.1 billion venue opened in 2016 and was then the largest public-private project in Minnesota's history. The city of Minneapolis footed $150 million, the state's
