It has long been speculated that the new Minnesota Vikings' stadium would have a retractable roof rather than a fixed one. While the Wilf family would have to foot the bill for such a feature, it would allow them to have the roof open during football games, as well as help to attract a Major League Soccer team to the Twin Cities.

On Wednesday, Vikings' VP Lester Bagley confirmed that the team was looking into that option. This courtesy of an interview with Bob Sansevere of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

BS: Any additions or subtractions the team would like to see since the stadium became a done deal?

LB: There's clearly going to be a need to make sure it's a people's stadium and the public is represented. It has to be programmed for baseball -- college, amateur and high school -- as well as soccer and basketball. All those program elements drive costs. We need to make sure this facility works for our fans and our organization. We have to make sure we get everything with a $975 million budget. It's a fixed-roof facility, but if we can cut costs, manage costs, our goal is to have a retractable feature (such as a portion of the roof that can be opened to view downtown). Some retractable feature, we think, is important. That's the one thing we're working on.

The Pro Football Talk story about this refers to what Bagley said as an option for a "partially retractable" roof. I'm not exactly sure how that will work, but it sounds like it would be a unique feature of what promises to be the best stadium in the National Football League.