“I think what’s going to make it a great piece of architecture is how well those neighborhood connections are thought about, and how well the building and the area surrounding the building works, not only game day but those many, many other days that are not game days,” Buggy said.īuggy said a good example of a football stadium that does that well is - gulp - Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. Jon Buggy, a past president of the American Institute of Architects Minnesota, couldn’t agree more. I want this to be well thought out I want it to look like it belongs there, and I want it to be more of a campus as opposed to just a building in the middle of Elliot Park.” Others weighing in echoed the need for the new stadium to feel like it’s part of the community.Ĭory Merrifield, founder of, said the potential of retractable doors leading out to a plaza “to me creates an environment where it’s inclusive, it’s part of what the stadium is, as opposed to right now where you’ve got the street that you block off and you put up a couple of tents and beer vendors and call it good. “A lot of people are excited about the possibilities.” “What I’m really confidently hopeful for is that it’s going to help to spur what needs to happen down here,” Regnier said.
The new stadium will be built in the same spot, though with a larger footprint. When the Metrodome was built in 1982, many hoped it would help transform the east end of downtown Minneapolis, but the domed stadium sat largely alone for its lifespan.
But the key question for Regnier, executive director of Elliot Park Neighborhood Inc., is “not just what does this building look like, it’s about what does it help to make happen?”