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Stadium Watch Blog
Tim Nelson

The Metrodome is now officially doomed: Vikings 2013 season will be its last

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The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority says they're officially telling the Vikings that the 2013 season will be their last in the dome.

Michele Kelm-Helgen chairs the authority, and said the new stadium's builder confirmed what HKS architects and the Vikings said last week -- that the team will have to play two years at TCF Bank Stadium, the 2014 and 2015 NFL seasons. Officials had hoped the team could limit its stay at the University of Minnesota to just the 2015 season.

"We wanted to wait for Mortenson to be on board, to have our construction company to verify what we had been hearing from our architect, which is it gets to be too expensive, and our schedule could be in jeopardy if we try to leave the dome up for that extra year," Kelm-Helgen said.

She also says there won't be any spectacular demolition. The new stadium is scheduled to break ground in October, and will be underway as the old stadium is demolished, so demolition crews are going to have to do it the hard way.

"At this point, they've indicated a more traditional process of taking the Dome down in pieces makes more sense than doing a big implosion," Kelm-Helgen says.