With less than six months to go until the official opening of U.S. Bank Stadium, the Minnesota Vikings are rolling out previews of new bars and public spaces inside the newest NFL facility.
The first event on the schedule isn’t a football game, but rather an international soccer friendly set for August 3 between A.C. Milan and Chelsea, with two other concerts — Luke Bryan and Metallica — set for August as well. (The opening Minnesota Vikings exhibition game will be either August 24 or August 31; the NFL preseason schedule has not been released.) But that’s not stopping the team from making a series of announcements of group spaces within the facility. We’ve also seen a series of group spaces announced, such as Club Purple (which you can see here, along with the other club spaces), and now we have 17,500 square feet of additional space in the form of group cabins, the Lodge Bar and the Truss Bar, which can accommodate 900 fans. The new space will be located in the stadium’s northeast corner, providing views of the field, the west videoboard and the downtown Minneapolis skyline.
The new space, which was funded by the Vikings (to the tune of $7.5 million) and designed by Generator Studio, were in the original stadium design but then shelved because of budget concerns. However, the Vikings say that demand for group spaces led them to finish off the additional space for the 2016 season. Above is the group space tagged as a cabin, while below is the Truss Bar, named for the primary ridge truss extending the length of the stadium.
Also part of the plan: the Lodge Bar, shown below.
Images and renderings courtesy Minnesota Vikings.