Authority sets goals for women, minority inclusion in stadium workforce

The five-person authority building a new stadium in Minneapolis approved a set of targets for women and minority-owned businesses to participate in the design and planning of the new facility.

Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chairwoman Michele Kelm-Helgen said the architectural firm, Dallas-based HKS, had agreed to the goals for subcontractors working on design and engineering. They are 11 percent for firms owned by women and 8 percent for minority-owned businesses.

"While there's no requirement that we do this, we have been very clear that we intend the design and construction of the stadium to set a new standard for inclusion," Kelm-Helgen said.

Planners hope nearly a third of the workforce building the stadium will be women and minorities.

"This plan provides the legal framework for how they can achieve these goals," Kelm-Helgen said.

The Minnesota Vikings management said today they are committed to negotiating with the state's stadium authority before setting a price on one-time seat fees for their ticket holders.

Lester Bagley, Vikings vice president, said Friday morning that the team's efforts to gauge fan interest in personal seat licenses may have been mishandled. They sent out an online survey that suggest the team might charge as much as $15,000 dollars a seat to season ticketholders.

"In hindsight, we should have perhaps informed the governor and the media that the survey is going out and we maybe would have avoided this bump in the road, but it is going to public," Bagley said. "There will be a process. It will be collaborative with the authority. But its way early in the process and we have a long way to go."

Bagley declined to say if the team had a revenue target or range of prices in mind for the seat licenses.

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