Settlement reached over concrete cracks outside Vikings stadium

An Eden Prairie-based design firm has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle a dispute over cracked concrete outside U.S. Bank Stadium.

The settlement with EVS Inc., approved by the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority Wednesday morning, brings to a close a yearslong disagreement stemming from concrete poured before the $1.1 billion Vikings stadium opened in 2016.

Last year, the MSFA — the governmental body that owns the stadium — settled with another firm, landscape architect Oslund and Assoc. (now known as O2 Design), which has offices in Minneapolis and Chicago, for $850,000.

From cuts to cracks

If you stroll across Medtronic Plaza on the stadium's western side and look down, the concrete cracks are easy to see: scores of concrete squares have crooked fault lines running across their middles.

Look for a few moments and a pattern emerges, as the cracks seem to connect to the edges of other squares.

The edges of those squares are actually cuts into the concrete slab. Known as control joints, they're supposed to direct the inevitable cracking that happens when concrete contracts. When the plaza's concrete was scored with control joints, an alternating pattern — not a grid — was created.

What's apparent from the pattern there today is that the cracks didn't care; they tried to make a grid.

In several spots, electrical access panels in the concrete have failed from the cracking, and plywood is covering at least one such spot to protect pedestrians from stepping into a recess.

EVS and Oslund each had a role in the design and engineering the plaza. According to the terms of their settlements, neither firm admits any wrongdoing in the dispute.

Andy Kim, president of EVS, said the following in response to the settlement's approval: "We are proud to have been part of such an important project in MN history. We are happy to see a resolution reached that allows the parties involved to move forward and celebrate a historic Vikings football season at this world class facility."

Representatives from Oslund/O2 couldn't be reached for comment Wednesday.

Part of security fencing plan

The combined $1.35 million from those settlements will go toward a plan to not just fix the concrete, but also redesign parts of the western side of the stadium as part of a larger plan to erect permanent security fencing around the stadium, MFSA Board Chair Michael Vekich said.

No cost has been estimated for that project, which could start as soon as 2023 and will likely be completed in 2024 or 2025.

Vekich said the $1.35 million likely wouldn't cover the cost of repairing the cracks on their own, but he said that a separate project to only repair the concrete wouldn't make sense, given the larger project to encircle the property in fencing.

Details on the fencing — how tall it will be and what it will look like — have yet to be considered. On Wednesday, the MFSA board moved ahead with hiring one of several firms to come up with potential designs and estimate the costs.