Local firm picked to build stadium, maybe retractable roof

Stick with what you know … Local firm Mortenson will build the Vikings’ new billion-dollar football palace. Says Richard Meryhew in the Strib: “The Minneapolis-based company that built new venues for the Twins, Wild, Timberwolves and University of Minnesota football team was chosen Friday to build the new home for the Minnesota Vikings. Mortenson Construction, which most recently built Target Field, home of the Twins, was selected this week by the team and the staff of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority to build the $975 million downtown Minneapolis stadium, which is scheduled to open in time for the 2016 NFL season. … One of Mortenson’s first challenges on the Vikings’ project will be working with HKS on pricing a retractable roof, wall or window.” … If we could just get that pull-tab thing into every bar and coffee shop in the state …

Tim Nelson’s MPR story says: “The pick comes as no real surprise: Mortenson actually got the job once before, back in 2008, when the then-Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission was planning its ‘Metrodome Next’ initiative. Mortenson has also been in on the ground floor in the latest project, lobbying for state aid for the project up at the Legislature, offering construction schedule and cost estimates and otherwise doing the legwork for the runup to the stadium bill signed last May. The construction management services agreement is the biggest contract in the stadium project. The stadium itself is expected to cost about $822 million of the total $975 million cost of the planning, land acquisition, building and other elements of getting a new stadium open. Initial designs for what Mortenson is supposed to be working on are expected to be unveiled in a few weeks  … Mortenson VP says the construction manager that worked on retractable roof for Lucas Oil Field is now working for his firm. Texas-based Walter P. Moore engineering firm will be on board, has experience in retractable roof facilities.”

While the GOP continues to cast about for a candidate — any candidate — to run against Al Franken, Mark Zdechlik of MPR reports on a growing consensus that Franken is in a solid position for re-election: “After a closely fought election that ended in a virtual draw, a recount declared Franken the winner by just 312 votes. Given the result, political pundits predicted that Franken would be an easy target for Republicans in 2014. But so far, it’s not playing out that way.  Coleman was expected to be the first in line to challenge Franken. If not, political observers thought former Gov. Tim Pawlenty would be interested. But Coleman and Pawlenty have ruled out running, and with less than two years to go before the election, Franken is sitting on more than $1.2 million in campaign cash with no opponent in sight.” Dang! A lot of people had high hopes for both conflict and high comedy in that one.

You know you’re in a miserable place when your defense attorney begs the court to let him drop your case. Mark Stodghill of the Duluth News Tribune says: “In the end, even her attorney couldn’t defend the actions of former Minnesota Power official Susan Kay Thompson. Duluth defense attorney Kevin Cornwell on Thursday asked to be allowed to withdraw as Thompson’s attorney for ethical reasons about a half-hour after Thompson failed to appear in State District Court for her sentencing by Judge John DeSanto for theft of corporate property. … Thompson was accused of stealing, or not being able to account for, more than $200,000 while using company money for personal expenses and weekend travel, making false claims of company travel and filing for reimbursements by forging her supervisor’s signature from 2000 through 2009.”

Enjoy the snow cover while you can, because when spring arrives … The Strib’s Bill McAuliffe says: “Minnesota is facing a ‘potentially explosive’ spring fire season because of lingering dry surface conditions, according to Olin Phillips, manager of the forest protection division of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Speaking at an emergency managers’ conference in Brooklyn Center on Thursday, Phillips said recent snows across the state will offer ‘some recovery.’ But if snowmelt is not followed by steady rains, materials on the ground surface, including downed trees from widespread windstorms in the past couple of years, will quickly dry out again and be fire-prone.”

Six years is actually pretty good … for the Post Office. Also in the News Tribune, John Myers writes: “A Duluth woman whose letter mailed to her Army son in Iraq came back to her stamped “DECEASED” when the soldier wasn’t dead has received a formal apology from the U.S. Post Office, more than six years after the incident. Joan Najbar received the [returned] letter in October 2006. The formal apology from the U.S. Postal Service arrived last week. The apology was written by a Twin Cities-based district manager and came through U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s office.”

If you’re tremendously concerned for the financial health of hospitals, your worry is misplaced. The PiPress’ Christopher Snowbeck reports: “Net income at hospitals in Minnesota grew by 4 percent in 2011, according to a state report released Thursday, Feb. 14. The increase in overall profit came even as hospital admissions declined for a third consecutive year, according to the Minnesota Department of Health’s Health Economics Program. Net income, which includes earnings both from hospital operations and investments, increased to $1.15 billion in 2011 from $1.10 billion in 2010, according to data released in conjunction with the report. In 2011, net income was 7.6 percent of revenue.”

Imagine the crowd for this one … Aaron Rupar at City Pages notes the coming of … Bikini Basketball: “Former Minnesota Lynx player Tamara Moore is … the owner of the Minnesota Mist Bikini Basketball team, which is set to make its debut this summer. Here’s the Mist’s bio from the bikini league’s official webpage (the league’s slogan is ‘Basketball League for Sexy Athletic Ladies’): The Minnesota Mist is a Bikini Basketball team which was established on October 6th, 2012. … The team was created by former six year WNBA Pro Tamara Moore … With the fusion of her knowledge in basketball, owning her own modeling agency “Divas In Demand” and working in radio/marketing, the Mist has been able to use all of those elements to custom build an amazing product. … Details about the Mist and Bikini Basketball in general remain somewhat sketchy, as the league doesn’t seem to have yet released a schedule or disclosed where the Minnesota team will be playing its home games. But tryouts for the team were held in November, and … practices are already in full swing.” So bring the whole family.

At the conservative site Hot Air, Ed Morrissey admonishes business types who, as he sees it, couldn’t see how Dayton + DFL majority = taxes: “Via my former radio partner Mitch Berg, the Associated Press brings us an example of willful political blindness from right here in my home state.  Patrick Condon reports on prominent businessmen who have built and/or run successful organizations, and yet never realized that their support for the DFL (Minnesota’s name for the Democratic Party) and Mark Dayton would mean — gasp — higher taxes. … Suddenly, the scales have begun to fall from their eyes … These taxes will hammer small businesses harder than large businesses, as do most tax and regulatory policies.  Larger businesses are more self-sufficient and can avoid more business-to-business transactions, but also their economies of scale mean that they can spread the costs out more efficiently, allowing them more flexibility on prices and profit pressures.”