Bud Grant, former Vikings head coach: “What we want to see is a winner! It’s gotta be fun.”

Jerry Burns, former Vikings head coach and longtime offensive coordinator: “A retractable roof. Looking at it from an offensive standpoint, your offense suffers a great deal when you are playing under bad conditions, rainy conditions or extremely windy conditions.”

Bill Lester, retired executive director for the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which ran the Metrodome: “More bathrooms for women.”

Mike Freeman, Hennepin County attorney: “Some reasonably priced seats. Let’s make sure Joe Sixpack can go with the kids.”

Matt Birk, former Vikings center: “The thing I don’t want to see is a roof. It’s Minnesota, for crying out loud. Let’s act like Minnesotans and not put a roof on the stadium.”

Kathleen Gearin, Ramsey County chief judge: “Give us a feel like Xcel [Energy Center] has, where you kind of feel like you’re down on the rink … I’d also like it to have some materials that are from Minnesota, like the Mankato limestone or quartzite from Pipestone. Or maybe a mosaic wall of agates from Lake Superior and the North Shore. I want it to have a ‘Minnesota’ feel to it.”

R.T. Rybak, Minneapolis mayor: “I want to make sure this is a place where soccer can be played. That’s a huge deal. I think someday it could be as big as football.”

Jackie Anderson, 77, Minnetonka: “They better make it retractable. And my husband wants a new coach and he thinks we need a new quarterback.”

Archie Coates, 54, retired, Minneapolis: “A retractable roof. If they’re playing a warm-weather team and they’re losing, they can open up the stadium and put the cold on.”

Shareef Hassan, 40, merchant at Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis: “We need a prayer room for any kind of religion. A place where you can go maybe at halftime in an emergency, you know?”

Kristina Hufnagle, 17, Lakeville: “I want to see them take the Minnesota culture and put that into the stadium. I would like to see it represent the state just as much as it represents the team.”

Brad Herring, 62, Minneapolis: “I just want to see them make it a little more comfortable for the fans than the Metrodome. Those seats are terrible. Most everybody I know complained about them.”

Mitch Johnson, 17, Lake­ville: “I’d like to see them do what the Twins did, where they brought in the State Fair kind of food, like cheese curds and corn dogs.”









































