The Minnesota Vikings‘ new stadium has a leaky gutter, and you know what that means: Time to tear it down and build a new one! No? Too soon?
M.A. Mortenson Co. executive John Wood announced Friday that the gutter on the $1.1 billion building was leaky and needed about $4 million in repairs.
Last fall, workers noticed dampness on the parapet wall and some pooling of water in the gutter, but the water had yet to seep inside, Wood said.
“We’re happy they found it now,” Wood said. “Stuff happens on projects.”
If anyone out there can identify the exact point in time at which “stuff happens” turns into “this building is obsolete,” there’s a Nobel Prize in Situational Economics with your name on it.
If anyone out there can identify the exact point in time at which “stuff happens” turns into “this building is obsolete,” there’s a Nobel Prize in Situational Economics with your name on it.
Isn’t the correct answer opening day?
I am as prepared to be cynical as anyone else. But not in this case. Properly understood, the Viking Stadium is still under construction and the leaks occurred during the construction phase – while aspects of that roof were still being built. It was rain in the fall, not snow in the Winter. The architectural and engineering design is new and, while still under construction, it was shown that one form of barrier was inferior to the one that will replace it. Its not even clear that the roof passed a “in-construction” punch list.
As it stands now, the leak is the stadium qualifies as an in-construction complication to be corrected as part of the initial build.
The “leak” in the roof qualifies as “construction damage” where a replacement of construction materials will resolve the issue.
Technically (and legally) speaking, there are no defects in a building until construction is completed and the building is turned over to owners and something goes bad. Even extending beyond this, as all large buildings go through a period of changes, corrections and fixes once turned over (except for major construction or engineering breakdowns), there will be teams making such corrections for the 18 months to 2 years.