Lakeville's Loeffler a Partner, Not a Bidder on Vikings Stadium

Loeffler Construction is growing—no doubt about that.

And the Lakeville-based firm's President and Co-Owner Doug Loeffler acknowledges building the Minnesota Vikings Stadium would be pretty great.

But recent media reports—including one found here on Lakeville Patch (published Jan. 15)—are a bit inaccurate, he said.

"It's flattering—the reports, but we cannot build it, or portray to build it alone," Loeffler said. "What we are doing ... we’re teamed with Gilbane Building Companies out of Rhode Island. They’re a very large firm that's built other stadiums, and they reached out to us and asked to be a local partner."

Loefller said his firm would be supporting Gilbane, helping them learn the marketplace and help work with the subcontractor community.

"We can add tremendous value to the Gilbain team with the talents we have in-house," he said.

So why was Loeffler's role overstated by the media?

On Jan. 11, The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority released the list of companies they called bidders who participated in a pre-proposal meeting.

At the meeting, Loeffler said the MSFA conducted a roll-call and he offered his name and his firm for the record.

"We were there supporting Gilbane," Loeffler said.

That means there are five firms looking to build the "People's Stadium." Minneapolis-based Kraus-Anderson and Mortenson Construction, have bid, as well as three firms from out of the state—Gilbane, Skanska of New Jersey and Hunt Construction of Arizona.

The MSFA's final selection will be announced on Feb. 1. Construction of the stadium, forecast to cost from $675 million to $975 million, is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2013, around Oct. 1, with a completion date set in July of 2016.

The structure will be designed by HKS Inc. of Dallas