urbanMSP

*Remaining* tenants. Of the three big ones, two had already GTFO.

And strangely enough, those tenants are not GTFI-ing when the new one goes up. They left because it's not possible to hold those events in a stadium built for the NFL. We tried it for 30 years and failed. Gophers baseball was just fine with the Dome AFAIK.

I get that this thing is happening, but it doesn't mean people don't get to criticize the design. If building basketball and hockey facilities will be paid off by *one* event of each, that's fine. If not, it's a waste of money.

Yep, everyone was loving "the worse venue in professional sports." Even ESPN and Fox play off the dome's horrible rep, including counting down the 10 worst Metrodome moments earlier this year.

How many of those moments were football-related? I'm asking honestly.

No one I know of seriously criticized the Dome as a football venue. The concourses were an inconvenience at best. If the design was good enough 30 years ago and the size of the facility didn't increase, why is it unworkable now?

You just hit the nail on the head, I promise you the cost of building hockey and basketball functionality combined is less than the cost of the baseball functionality alone. Whether people like it or not we are building a billion dollar stadium we might as well build it to host as many events as possible to get the best return that we can.

We did have a stadium that worked for football, basketball, hockey, soccer, baseball. All of the tenants seemed to be happy with it, save one.

Are you implying that everybody was happy with the Metrodome except the Vikings?

Gopher's football liked it so much they built their own stadium. It was a horrible game time experience for a college football program. Of course they went to the dome thinking it would enhace recruitment, but it had the opposite effect. Once the recruits saw how bad the atmosphere it became hard to sell.

Plenty O' Photos:
https://twitter.com/MSFA_NewStadium

Yep, everyone was loving "the worse venue in professional sports." Even ESPN and Fox play off the dome's horrible rep, including counting down the 10 worst Metrodome moments earlier this year.

How many of those moments were football-related? I'm asking honestly.

No one I know of seriously criticized the Dome as a football venue. The concourses were an inconvenience at best. If the design was good enough 30 years ago and the size of the facility didn't increase, why is it unworkable now?

I think over all, any experience in the dome was stale. That style dome did not lend itself to a wonderful experience. Heck, the RCA Dome lasted quite a few years less than the Metrodome, and it was what I might regard as a second generation of the style.

Maybe we should stop building these things to last, because style life of a stadium seems far shorter than the physical life of a stadium.

I’m afraid there aren’t any arguments in favor of the continued use of the Metrodome that would have saved it. Despite how functional it still may have been, once it became clear that all of it’s major tenants wanted out, it was doomed. And it would have been torn down even if no new stadium was being built to replace it.

Not to get into another big tangent, but the precedent for complaints like that of FISHMANPET is pretty weak.

Roughly speaking we are in probably the third generation of sports stadiums. First were very basic facilities with few frills, then we moved into a generation of cheap multi-use facilities that did a lot of things OK but we're never great. Now we're in a period of pro sports being a massive industry, and stadium investment has followed suit.

That doesn't mean that all new stadiums will be around for a century. But it's hard to imagine a stadium like Target Field going obsolete in 30 years just because the Metrodome did. They are very, very different stadiums.

How was the 25-year-old Target Center obsolete then?

I'm sure they said that about the Metrodome when it was built too. There's really no way to predict the future, but every new stadium is bigger and more extravagant than the last, so I have a hard time looking saying "yes, this will be good enough."

Target Center isn't a pro football/multi-use stadium, so it's not really relevant, but to answer your question: it was never obsolete. It was built at the beginning of a new generation of NBA arenas and got outdated. For a price much cheaper than rebuilding, Target Center is going to remain perfectly functional for many years.

I'm sure they said that about the Metrodome when it was built too. There's really no way to predict the future, but every new stadium is bigger and more extravagant than the last, so I have a hard time looking saying "yes, this will be good enough."

I'm sure if you looked into it instead of assuming you could easily find that the circumstances behind building stadiums of the Metrodome's ilk were different from re circumstances of today.

I'm obviously not suggesting that the Metrodome was built purposely to fail. My point is just that the thinking behind building stadiums of that nature was different. There is much more emphasis today on creating a world-class venue for the fans that brings in a lot of revenue for the owner, whereas in 1980 it was about efficiency over aesthetics.

I don't disagree with that, I just don't know how we can say that the latest evolution of stadium design is the final form. How can we be sure that in 25 years, the focus won't be on something else?

I don't know, maybe this will be fine, it just seems the stadium supporters are so sure of their convictions, there's no shred of doubt that this is a good idea, and I don't think we can be sure of how anything is going to go in 30 years.

Gopher's football liked it so much they built their own stadium. It was a horrible game time experience for a college football program. Of course they went to the dome thinking it would enhace recruitment, but it had the opposite effect. Once the recruits saw how bad the atmosphere it became hard to sell.

Yep. The college game did not work there. When I said "football," I actually meant NFL. Sorry, I should have been clearer.

Yep, everyone was loving "the worse venue in professional sports." Even ESPN and Fox play off the dome's horrible rep, including counting down the 10 worst Metrodome moments earlier this year.

How many of those moments were football-related? I'm asking honestly.

No one I know of seriously criticized the Dome as a football venue. The concourses were an inconvenience at best. If the design was good enough 30 years ago and the size of the facility didn't increase, why is it unworkable now?

I think over all, any experience in the dome was stale. That style dome did not lend itself to a wonderful experience. Heck, the RCA Dome lasted quite a few years less than the Metrodome, and it was what I might regard as a second generation of the style.

And yet BC Place just keeps rolling along. It seems to work great for the CFL.

BC Place has had a $528 million dollar remodel. It had better be a viable sradium.

BC Place has had a $528 million dollar remodel.

Which is a hell of a lot cheaper than $1.x billion!

BC Place has had a $528 million dollar remodel.

Which is a hell of a lot cheaper than $1.x billion!

FYI, the CFL is not the NFL.