By Albert Lea Tribune and Associated Press

WELLS — As work begins to demolish the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, hundreds of its blue stadium seats will be recycled by a small school district in southern Minnesota.

The United South Central School District is building a new K-12 school for its 630 students. With a tight budget, there wasn’t enough money for any extras at its new football field. And that’s where several local businesses and the reclaimed seats come into play.

Wells Concrete is donating the material and labor to create a permanent, stadium-type seating structure at the new football field. When the district looked at seating options, $40 for a Metrodome seat seemed like a good deal. So the district scooped up 840.

School board member John Feist said it’s “pretty neat” that the entire structure will be filled with Metrodome seats.

The USC colors are red, silver and blue, so the seats will retain their hue of blue. The new school in Wells opens in the fall, but the football field won’t be ready until a year later.