As much as I'd love to have a downtown stadium, I have a hard time believing they could afford the land, and I seriously doubt anyone would build a stadium that's not relatively close to highways. But House Park isn't. It will be interesting to see how that works for the team next season. If it's gangbusters, then any sufficiently large plot of land could be viable. As to the location that y'all are talking about, the residents/builder of that new giant whateveritis just off Barton Springs might not like the stadium idea very much. Then again,they might love it. Who knows.
In my little fantasy land it wouldn't be the Aztex owning the land, but rather a municipal stadium, operated by the Aztex, which seems like a much more reasonable thing to replace some existing little league diamonds with. Use the thing for concerts, state & regional soccer finals, rec league championships, etc. Austin is a great city for events with nice weather in the fall, I'm sure you could get some NCAA finals there. The spot is actually fairly close to Mo-Pac through Zilker. As for the residents, I think you have to expect events/people/noise/etc when you choose to live where those condos are going up. I'm sure Uncle Billy's, Barton Creek Saloon, etc. would love to have an extra 5000+ people in the neighborhood 20 times a year (plus whatever else the schedule there). The space is a little tight, but not too tight. Something the size of House or Nelson would fit in there easily, but there wouldn't be a ton of room for extra parking. If anyone knows how (other than my google maps cut and paste), I would love to see the footprint of some other stadia in the space. And speaking of density, the other thing I'd really really love to see in downtown Austin is a velodrome. Given the number of passionate cyclists in town, I'm shocked that there isn't one already. I wonder if there would be any way to put both in with shared bathrooms/beer stands, etc. Probably not unless they razed the theatre.
While it's been quiet this week on the player signing front, there has been a tiny bit of movement forward on the 'our own stadium' front.
I read in the UK velo news magazine that the last 10 or 12 velodromes built in the English speaking world were all for larger events. Things like the Olympics, the Commonwealth games, World University games, Asian games...etc. They were lamenting the this as the death rattle of the sport as it took something else to actually get the cycling track constructed.
Dude, we soccer fans have enough problems dealing with soccer stadiums with running tracks that kills the atmosphere. But running water is just too much right there! Beside you're giving the Vancouver "Flop"caps too many ideas about their soccer stadium plans.
ACC buys 18.5 acres at Highland Mall from Dillard's I think this actually makes it a little more possible for a stadium to be built there. That part of the mall could be bought and repurposed increases the likelihood that other parts of it could be bought. But I'm still probably just dreaming.
OK. So it's nowhere near downtown. But it is really close to 130, and not horribly far from the commuter rail line that Elgin want to see going out that direction. Manor Downs closure signals trouble in horse racing industry Just throwing out ideas to keep the notion bubbling.
Definitely has the space to grow. I'm going to be interviewing Adrian the latter part of this week, and there are some questions on stadiums, so I'll toss this into the mix.
One stadium related question i'd like to ask Adrian, Phil, and co is the following. "Are there any potential stadium sites that the AAFC FO is looking at that you can tell us about, and if so where are they and why there?"
I can answer that question. "No" As much as we'd love to know where the Aztex are looking at, with the 'special nature' of Austin and the added fun of NIMBY reactions to stadiums, they pretty much need to keep it quiet until things are way farther along. Like, nearly ready to spring it on people so that it's virtually a done deal. Unless they can find a location that no-one will complain about. And good luck finding that. Hell, they're going to build a racetrack in the middle of nowhere, and I saw on the news someone that's unhappy about it. (Then again, if I had a nice quiet place out in the country that someone was going to build a racetrack next to, I'd be quite put out.)
So, obviously not for the Aztex.. but if/when we have a team here, again.. I've recently found that there are a few grass-surface football stadiums in the Austin area. What's the difference in a SSS and a football stadium with a grass surface without gridiron lines? (To me, its not much, except that the football stadium is already there, waiting to be used.) Here's what I've found: Rudolph Gamblin Field: Central Austin, capacity 2000. Beck Stadium: Southwest Parkway, capacity 1000. Crusader Stadium: West Austin, capacity 1000. old (unused?) stadium at Manor Middle School: Manor, capacity 1500? Lake Travis ISD Stadium: Bee Cave area, capacity 5500. Most of the above can be found on TexasBob.com. (except the Manor Middle School stadium) The capacity on these would probably be enough for a D4/PDL/SPSL-type team, but only the Lake Travis stadium would be enough for an Aztex-sized crowd. Here's a photo of the 5.5k Lake Travis stadium:
It would be smart to get on Google Earth and measure the field widths. For instance, the NPSL requires a 65yd wide field. House park looked to be approximately 60yds wide and was considered very, very narrow.
Sounds like a good idea.. (but I haven't got a clue how to do it.) It looks like they play soccer in that stadium at Lake Travis.. Here's some photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/lths.soccer.booster/2010# In many of the photos, there are no signs of gridiron, but it is there in others. I guess when football season isn't going on, they get rid of the lines, and put down soccer lines.
1) Download Google Earth: http://www.google.com/earth/index.html 2) Go to each of the stadiums, use the ruler tool to measure the width of the field. Tutorial: http://www.google.com/earth/learn/beginner.html#drawing-and-measuring 3) ??? 4) Profit. PS - Sorry if no one got the internet meme. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit
Hard to believe any existing stadium would be an improvement over House Park, even if it is grass, and even if it is wider. Now, if it's privately-owned and therefore beer-saleable. . .
House Park definitely has a great location and atmosphere (from the west stand), but I am under the impression that the Aztex had to offer alot to AISD to get in there.
Some of those red jerseys look very tight around the neck. I bet they don't let any heat out when running.