Houston Dynamo Release Renderings & Details Of New Stadium
A day after the Houston Dynamo announced that the loose ends of their deal with the city for their new downtown stadium had been tied up and that they would be breaking ground on the stadium on Saturday, the Dynamo released additional renderings and details of their new stadium. The stadium will give the Dynamo their own home after renting Robertson Stadium from the University of Houston since the team moved to Houston from San Jose in 2006.
The 22,000 seat stadium, expandable to 30,000, due to open in 2012 was designed by Populous, whose work in MLS includes the Colorado Rapids' home Dicks Sporting Goods Park, Sporting Kansas City's new stadium that will open this year and Gillette Stadium, which is not a soccer-specific stadium, but is home to the New England Revolution. The renderings released today, which can be seen at the SBNation Dynamo website, Dynamo Theory, show a stadium with a unique exterior that is unlike any other in MLS that is made out of mesh and capable of glowing orange with lighting.
The stadium will have an upper and lower tier, separated by 33 suites that will be along both sidelines less than 10 rows from the field. The two tiers will be served by a single 30 foot wide concourse. Along with the suites, there will be 1,100 club seats, a press box that seats 50 members of the print media and seven broadcast booths. All of that will be surround a Bermuda grass field that will host international soccer, Texas State football, concerts, lacrosse and rugby in addition to the Dynamo.
One of the biggest criticisms of some soccer-specific stadiums in the United States is the horseshoe design that has no seats behind one end line and instead has a stage for concerts. Houston’s stadium will have a stage behind one end line, but there will be retractable seats that will be able to cover the stage during matches and allow for a seamless seating bowl.
While the Houston stadium will not have the complete roof that Red Bull Arena and the new Kansas City stadium have, it will have a roof over three ends. The two sidelines will be covered by a roof that extends out 75 feet and the staged end will be covered by a roof that extends 125 feet.
The Dynamo have stated they hope to have the stadium done by next April. But that would be an aggressive schedule.
When the Dynamo break ground for their stadium on Saturday, only three MLS teams will be actively seeking a new stadium. One of those, the San Jose Earthquakes, are pushing forward with their plans for a new stadium and don't appear to be too far off from breaking ground themselves. The Revolution are also exploring the possibility of building a stadium of their own, but their owner, Bob Kraft, does own their current home, Gillette Stadium, so financially the club is fine. DC United is the lone team without a suitable stadium or near plans for a suitable stadium and their situation has reached the point that they will soon have to explore the possibility of moving to a proposed stadium in Baltimore.
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