A small New Ulm company has 87 big reasons to be excited about the TCF Stadium project. The firm, American Artstone, is producing 87 decorative, cast stone signs for the new University of Minnesota football stadium. Each sign is engraved with the name of a Minnesota county, part of the university's effort to show that the stadium is a 'statewide facility." The signs are the handiwork of a 95-year-old firm known for its building façade work at places like the University of St. Thomas, the Winona County Courthouse, the Ramsey County Government Center, and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

American Artstone has done some 'small stadium stuff, but not on this scale," said Mark Rolle, the firm's manager of sales and estimating. 'This is exciting for us," he said. 'And we have some Golden Gophers within our firm." The TCF Stadium effort is a big undertaking. Each 16' by 5'4" sign weighs 6,500 pounds and is precisely crafted to fit with different radius points on the stadium, a process that requires 'pretty intricate drawings," Rolle noted. The New Ulm firm is working with masonry contractor Northland Concrete of Burnsville and Sioux Falls-based Gage Brothers. Northland is setting up the base panels for the signs, and Gage Brothers is installing thin-set bricks for the non-decorative portion of the façade. American Artstone's work represents roughly $1.6 million of the stadium's $11.8 million precast concrete contract. Rolle said his company was a logical choice for the work, despite its lack of major stadium experience.
'We are kind of known for our intricate, highly refined work," Rolle said. 'So the stadium was a perfect fit for what we do. And we have a good working relationship with [general contractor] Mortenson and have worked with [architect] HOK in the past."

American Artstone is a member of the Cast Stone Institute, which defines cast stone as 'a masonry product that provides ornamental or functional features to buildings and other structures." Ingredients in cast stone include 'fine and coarse aggregates, Portland cement, mineral oxide color pigments, chemical admixtures and water," according to the association. American Artstone is producing the signs at its manufacturing plant in New Ulm, where the company has been in business for nearly 95 years. It was founded in 1914 in a Fairfax, Minn., garage and moved to New Ulm two years later, according to the firm's website. The company's 35-person payroll includes third-generation artisans and 'true German craftsmen," Rolle said. Workers at the plant can tackle 'almost any shape required of the project," the website boasts, including the 'once near impossible compound radius," which includes curves in both elevation and plane. 'Our market niche has been cruel and unusual," Rolle said. 'It's something we do. For most firms, it would be very specialized, but that is what our market niche is." Besides producing the cast stone signs, American Artstone is providing 38 10-foot diameter arches, three 28-foot diameter archways and two 42-foot diameter arches for TCF Stadium, which is scheduled to open in September 2009.

Brian Swanson, the university's TCF Stadium project coordinator, said it was the university's idea to engrave the county names into the stadium. It happened that the number of colonnade bays in the design matched the number of counties and the idea 'grew out of that," he said. Crews will install signs representing Pope, Ramsey, Red Lake, Redwood, and Renville counties this week, and will add up to 10 signs each month through March 2009. 'They are putting them up faster than we expected," Swanson said. 'They are big, but when you think about it, everything on this project is big — the thousands and thousands of tons of structural steel, the giant pieces of precast concrete. 'They are just another big piece of a big project."