Normally it’s the action on the floor of the Target Center that screams for attention, but to see the latest project underway you’ll have to look up. Crews are replacing the building’s roof with an environmentally-friendly green roof.

The project is not cheap. The city is paying $5.3 million dollars to create the largest green roof in the state of Minnesota. A conventional roof would have cost about $1.2 million, according to an estimate prepared for the city in 2008. But the green roof is expected to last much longer: up to 40-50 years, verses 20 years for a conventional roof.