News: Dynamo Stadium - City & County Approve Deal

Does anyone have any real idea what the proposed stadium looks like? They better have a squared-off deal with endline seating and not a dumb stage or track and stuff. One of the virtues of Robertson is the intimate seating all around the field and endline stands which recall Europe. Only RFK compares in terms of compacted atmosphere (ie, fan groups in compact sections of stands). I hope that's not lost in the new building. Please do not go cookie cutter.

If we are committing to TSU then we are committing to football lines (I think it's a nice favor to a hard luck school). I've always thought this was about who controlled the stadium and not the football lines. Once TSU got involved people should have known. And I have seen football lines at Pizza Hut, rugby lines at Toyota Park. For that matter, you can sometimes see rugby lines at certain stadia in England (Hull, etc.), so it's not like we're alone. My primary concern would be keeping the football down to a minimum (thus avoiding a UH-quality-field situation) and hopefully this solves that.

For the stadium you show, I think $80-95 million is lowball. Minimalist Pizza Hut is $80 million and most of the newer ones -- even the ones cheaper than Red Bull -- are over $100 million. But worrying about that is above my paygrade.

 

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Using last year for an example. TSU played their 1st home game on 9/05 at Reliant in the Labor Day Classic. The Dynamo had already played 25 games. TSU played their 4th and final home game after MLS Cup had been decided. That makes a total of 2 TSU home games that would have had a potential for conflict. And this with no schedule co-ordination. Even if they move the Classic to Dynamo Park than it is still only 3.

Anyone who thinks the Dynamo aren't going to make a huge effort to avoid pointy ball lines in the stadium THEY control is selling them short.

 

They will be using the special paint that FC Dallas uses for Pizza Hut Park which basically washes away (not all the way--it is not distracting) after football games.

It will be very interesting to see what the dimensions of the field will be. Will it be the small confines of Robertson or the big dimensions like Dick's Sporting Goods Park?

 

Per Nigels comment here are the contact details for the primary public official involved:
• Judge Ed Emmett: judge.emmett@cjo.hctx.net, (713)755-4000
• Commissioner El Franco Lee: Janet_Duran@cp1.hctx.net, (713)755-6111
• Commissioner Sylvia Garcia: sylvia_garcia@pct2.co.harris.tx.us, (713)755-6220
• Commissioner Steve Radack: pct3@hctx.net, (713)755-6306
• Commissioner Jerry Eversole: JerryEversole@hcp4.net, (713)755-6444

• Mayor Annise D. Parker: mayor@cityofhouston.net, 713.837.0311
• Council James Rodriguez: districti@cityofhouston.net, 832.393.3011

Anybody else I left out?

 

The team is built for Robertson-ball (tiny SJSU before that) and would need to be adjusted for a bigger park. But, then again, the Astros have never seemed to completely grasp they moved from a massive indoor pitchers' park to an outdoor sluggers' park (if you hit down the lines), teams don't always "get it."

 

The picture of the stadium above was used in a Dynamo press release. That leads me to believe it's at least somewhat accurate but who knows.

As for the cost, I wouldn't worry about it nor would I compare it to FC Dallas and NY. For example, does that $80 million for PHP include the massive parking lots and surrounding youth soccer fields? If so, that means the cost of the stadium itself was actually lest than $80 million. Does NY's cost include the cost of land, the cost of waste cleanup, the cost of labor...all of which are insanely expensive in the NE? We just don't know enough to worry about what our 60-80 million will get us. We'll see but given that the land is already purchased and that labor costs in Houston are extremely low, our $60 million should go a very, very long way. I'm not expecting a Red Bull Park but I don't think we are going to get a minimalist SJ structure either.

 

i for one would be happy with either, im just glad it happened.... im there for the footy we could of been left out like dc, with neither of the two

edit: not that i wouldnt enjoy a red bull knock off..

 

But they play really well in Colorado. I really like watching games on a big field and hate everything jammed up onto a small one.

 

I think one of the great thing about being one of the last teams to build a stadium (or at least at the bottom) is that you can see the good and bad in these SS stadiums and hopefully take all of the good and put them in.

Minute Maid did this when we saw a flurry of new baseball parks being built and the Astros ended up bring a lot of things from a lot of different parks. I thing the reason the Astros continue to have good attendance no matter how they are playing is because of the experience at Minute Maid Park.

Hopefully the Dynamo will listen to the fans and really understand what works and doesn't work at each stadium. They have plenty of new stadiums to look at.

 

It's time to mention palm trees in this thread.

 

It all starts with the architectual firm. It's gotta pass the front office to get built. I'm sure they are looking for one now or finally putting pencil to paper with the drawings already if they want to break ground in October. I expect plans in a couple months.

 

Yes. The people demand palm trees.

 

I think they've had the plans ready for a year now.

 

Robertson is not completely devoid of appealing features, it's just the rough lease and the rough field, eh?

 

I hope that the Dynamo fans transfer to the new stadium well.

One caveat I'd raise on the Astros is that the period right before the move was one of playoff runs, Killer Bs, and huge Dome crowds. The place was filled for Randy Johnson's debut (i was there) and some of the averages for those years actually compare well to the Minute Maid years. You might be able to convince me that fewer people would go to see a Dome loser than a Minute Maid loser, but there've not been too many really bad Minute Maid teams and I'd have to see the math.

Considering I've been in some pretty big crowds at Robertson, I'm not completely convinced of the brilliance of shrinking the capacity this drastically. Minute Maid can never match a full Dome crowd. At minimum, I hope it's designed/engineered to be expandable in a way that Minute Maid does not appear to be.

 

But I thought they looked strained in Mexico City at big ol' Azteca. That one 4-4 game with Pumas (or something like that). For every goal our offense could score in more space, the slow defenders gave up one going the other way.

I always feel like what happens in Colorado is it turns into a punt-fest that makes some of the recent offense cluster-effs look positively dynamic in comparison. Onstad punts, their keeper catches and punts. Which works out like Robertson on a bad day.....

 

Pumas UNAM plays in the Olympic Stadium at C.U. (Ciudad Universitaria or University City in English) not Azteca. it's where the US track athletes did the black power salute during US national anthem in 1968 Olympics.



Azteca is this huge place that seats 115,000. you can't mistake it. it's where the 1986 final was held, "mano de Dios", etc.



know your history or GTFO.

 

You can move the lines in on a bigger field to create a more confined playing space. The opposite isn't true. Dom won't be the Dynamo coach forever, so it would be extremely shortsighted to sentence us to an eternity of clusterball. I'll be very unhappy if the stadium won't accommodate a full size field.

 

Gringo mistake....eh?

 

The current stadium has some personality, including the dimensions. If they change the field size, I just hope they don't turn it into some boring soulless cookie cutter like Dallas. There will be far worse ideas than those palm trees, for instance.

 

Not sure I agree with this. The whole play really well in Colorado part.

I can buy that. It would take away some of the intimacy but I can still get behind it.