In the debate over whether to install special glass for the billion-dollar Minnesota Vikings' stadium in downtown Minneapolis to protect migratory birds, St. Paul wants to make one thing clear: it's for the birds.
Three City Council members next week will introduce a resolution calling on the Vikings and the Minnesota Sports Facility Authority "to build a bird-proof stadium" with glass walls that are visible to birds rather than completely transparent. To do otherwise, the resolution says, could result in the deaths of thousands of birds.
Why should this matter to St. Paul? For one thing, the city shares with Minneapolis the Mississippi River, a corridor used every spring and fall by 40 percent of the migratory birds in North America. The more birds colliding with the stadium in Minneapolis, the fewer will find their way through the capital city.
And the city wants to stand in solidarity with the Minneapolis City Council, which passed a similar resolution nearly three months ago.
Both St. Paul and Minneapolis signed a federal urban conservation treaty for migratory birds in 2011. Minneapolis' stadium implementation committee, the state Department of Natural Resources and the Minnesota Audubon Society all think bird-safe glass is the way to go.
But the St. Paul resolution is unlikely to change the minds of the Vikings or the stadium commission. They've already pointed out that specially fritted glass, containing tiny ceramic beads to make it less reflective, would add $1.1 million to the stadium budget.
And they say it could reduce the glass' transparency for human eyes. If you're going to design a downtown pyramid wrapped in 200,000 square feet of glass, you ought to be able to see in or out as well as possible, so the argument goes.
