Earlier today, the Harris County Commissioners Court voted 5-0 to approve the downtown stadium deal for the Houston Dynamo. With this development, only one last step must be taken before they can start breaking ground on the new stadium.
The only thing standing in the way of a soccer stadium now is reaching a lease agreement with the Sports Authority, which should be done without any problems, as opposed to the process that they have had to go through to get to this point.
“We should do that relatively quickly,” team president Oliver Luck said. “The parameters of that arrangement are already in place. We hope to have a shovel in the ground sometime this fall, and our goal is to open up the 2012 Dynamo season in the new stadium.”
In the meantime, I think that Robertson Stadium will be a little bit more bearable knowing that better stadium days are on the way. The stadium will be a soccer specific facility, but will also host the Texas Southern football team as secondary tenants. It will be located on on the east end of downtown Houston, "just a free kick away from Minute Maid Park" according to Luck in an open letter to Dynamo fans and supporters.
The hard part is over, the funding is in place, all that remains is to build it, and they certainly will come. So rejoice soccer and sports fans. The most successful sports franchise in Houston and one of the best clubs in MLS will finally have their long-awaited home.
Is there any information on the carrying capacity of the new stadium? Also, I wonder if this new stadium helps Houston's chances for a World Cup bid.
ReplyDeleteIt's supposed to be around 20-22,000, something like that. And I think that the stadium only helps in showing that Houston is becoming more of a soccer city. If the US received a World Cup bid and Houston was chosen as a host city, the games would be played at Reliant where we would have enough capacity.
ReplyDeleteim excited there building a soccer specific stadium, the location is another huge plus. this will help the Dynamo become more popular in the city of houston.
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