U.S. Bank Stadium Passes Snow Test With Ease
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The developers of U.S. Bank Stadium were celebrating this week after getting a test run from Mother Nature on how the Vikings' new home will handle heavy snow.
The stadium's 248,000-square-foot roof is designed to shed snow, and that's exactly what it did following Tuesday's storm, which dumped around 10 inches of powder on Minneapolis.
"We were actually glad to get a pretty heavy, significant snow so we could see how [the roof] performs," said Michele Kelm-Helgen, the chair of the Minnesota Sports Facility Authority.
She and her team worked with architects in Texas to give the stadium a "Minnesota-proof" design.
Much of the building's slanted roof is covered with ethylene tetrafluoroethylene. Like Teflon, it has chemical properties that push snow and rain off its surface.
Kelm-Helgen said the roof's design pushes snow into gutters, which are heated to help with drainage. From there, the snow-water trickles into an onsite filtration system that pushes the water into storm drains and the Mississippi River.
"So there's an entire snow management system that's built and has been put in place and is actually working," Kelm-Helgen said.
In the Metrodome, the Vikings' old home that was demolished to make way for U.S. Bank Stadium, workers used to have to spray down the roof and even shovel off the snow.
Sometimes, after major snow storms,the roof would collapse.
The last time that happened was five years ago, when the Twin Cities got hit with 17 inches of snow.
Currently, U.S. Bank Stadium is 90 percent complete. The Vikings are slated to play there next season.
