for a few years I would walk to the NE corner and get a Princes hamburger. They just grilled them on some large portable grills. For all of the “flash” of Shell Energy Stadium, I’ve rarely enjoyed anything as much as those simple burgers at the Rob. Maybe because it was just about the soccer I liked it. that said, concessions line pace at Robertson was glacial. The workers were uh, not in much of a rush to serve folks
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/te...0N2RlLWEwODAtMzY1YTI3NDFhMjQy&sharecount=Mg== During the offseason, the venue expanded its premium offering with the 15,000-square foot all-inclusive air-conditioned East Club. The installation of more than 20,000 all-new mesh seats is also part of the renovations. The Shell Energy Deck was part of phase one during the 2021 offseason. New food and beverage options will debut at Shell Energy Stadium as part of the recently announced partnership with chef Hugo Ortega. The Houston Dynamo Football Club is expanding its local eateries at Shell Energy Stadium to 10 new restaurant partners. The fan experience should be greatly enhanced at Shell Energy Stadium this season. The Dynamo plan for the level of play to improve as well after finishing 13th in the West in 2022. “We need to wake up now and not harp on the past and the points we left on the road,” Dynamo midfielder Héctor Herrera said of the season's first two losses at FC Cincinnati and New England. “The team is calm and conscious of what we are playing for on Saturday. The most important thing is for us to be focused and for our fans to be fully engaged.”
The east side club walk around is cool. You have the choice of going through an outdoor walkway OR up and then down stairs that go directly over the club.
its only "cool" if you don't have to fight 20% of the fans to get up the stairs to get to your seat. Virtually no one yet knows that you can walk outside and around instead of going up and over. I'm desperately hoping that giant, obvious signage is put up soon to inform said fans of this option. There is very little experience with being in a stadium, leaving the stadium, then coming back into the stadium when moving around so expecting fans to instinctively to know to do this is absurd on the stadiums part. And when the weather is bad.....it will be a colossal nightmare.
Good points, the long standing requirement for going to any sporting event is no return entry policy. Just so folks do not exit and eat or drink outside in the parking lot to thus be able to return inside to the stadium. End game being any ownership wants the ticket buying customer to purchase food n drinks inside the stadium, a significant revenue stream on game days. I think we all know this, does our FO know what might occur if fans are allowed reentry? Then the weather, pouring down rain and does a family want to take their kids out in that just to navigate to the Dynamo memorabilia shop at the other end of our stadium to purchase gear, another significant revenue stream on game days.
Not directly PNC Stadium-related, but a telling sign of what might be in store for one of the Astros surface lots: https://www.bizjournals.com/houston...tent&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter “The development will include a high-end, 4-star hotel, but the team has yet to secure a brand for the hotel, Crane said. The entertainment district is slated to include restaurants and an indoor tailgating area that can be used year-round. It will also include a walkway above the street, which will take guests directly to the club level of the ballpark. The organization has hired an architecture firm and construction company for the project, Crane said, but the team did not confirm which companies it's working with prior to publication. Crane said the organization hopes to break ground on the project following the conclusion of the Astros’ season and that it could take about three years to complete. He added that the team might build the development in phases, with some parts of the entertainment district opening sooner than others” Lot B, the western most lot bordered by the feeder/Texas/Preston/St Emmanuel, is set to become a part of the 45 realignment. Crane has said in prior interviews and to east end civic groups that Lot C, bordered by St E/Texas/Preston/Bastrop, would be redeveloped if the highway cap TxDOT offered as a concession gets traction. The cap looks all but certain to occur as it was cited as a stipulation in the MOU with the city and county. He gives a timeline of three years, so the Dynamo will have to adjust parking arrangements sooner rather than later. There's still ample free street parking around the stadium, as the city's parking ordinances don't permit meters in front of single-family or townhouse residential. But designated lots may be a thing of the past since the Dynamo never succeeded on Oliver Luck's stated goal of getting its own parking.
Comments Crane gave to the Chronicle in 2021, regarding the 45 realignment and what we planned to do with Astros-owned parking lots.
That open parking lot at McKinney and Emancipation thus needs to be purchased by our club and redeveloped into a multi tier parking structure for season ticket holders.
In terms of turning the highway cap into a park, there has been conjecture about who will fund a project of this size. Central Houston, aka TIRZ 3, has written letters stating it would throw in dough. Houston First, which manages city-supported hospitality-related buildings in the area like the GRB and Hilton of the Americas, in meetings has offered to resources as well. Renderings are just that, but here's what Central Houston envisions: As you can see, all of the western-most lot will be under the park as part of the highway ROW. Lot C will be unaffected, but the rendering shows high-rises or similar coming in, an indication of what the TIRZ is hoping to attract. So like Crane said in the interview, the lot will likely to become something bigger if the park goes in.
I drove by this week and it looks like it is sort of fenced off but odd to put an outdoor walkway option in. May be a fire code type of issue but clearly they got it permitted to build the club that way.
I think Lot C or the capacity of Lot C will survive in some form or fashion as the Astros offer those lots up to season ticket holders (Diamond Club folks get the lot right next to the stadium, other get Lot B and I think maybe one lot under 59.). So if Lot B goes, C will stay in some form. Parking garages can be very expensive to build, especially in the current environment. This whole 45/59 thing I really don't understand the benefits Most folks don't recall that Lot C was pitched as one of the possible stadium sites back in 2007. County owned the lots.
I was under the impression the Astros always owned them. Did they buy out the county or are they just given the operation rights to the lots?
I guess all of the folks who sat in that area immediately down from the club got a massive almost 100% increase in their season tickets which now start at $2500. I don't understand the business plan because I'm sure that a bunch of folks who previously sat in those 800 seats declined to commit. I wonder how many they lost.
I'd have to research. I think they were (in 2007) County owned but leased to the Astros to operate. There was something when BBVA Stadium was built where the County I think forced the Astros to make the lots available to the Dynamo for use but Astros have priority
The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority is the listed owner of both lots. I am ignorant as to how quasi-governmental entities like the HHCSA work, other than they're umbrella organizations enacted when private interests and public monies intersect. Westie and Nigel may know more. Appears the HHCSA acquired the lots in 1998 from the Houston Belt & Terminal Railway, a joint venture between Union Pacific and BNSF Railways. The HB&T owns the West Belt, which is the line that runs diagonally across the boundaries of EaDo and Second Ward, and that Harrisburg goes under shortly east of Emancipation.
The 2nd paragraph makes sense because the land would have been where the rail lines in and out of Union Station would have been. You can still see some remnants of it on Walker St south of the stadium.
Here is the nitty gritty - document linked below. Actually a lease amendment document from 2018 when the TXDOT condemnation was moving along. Page 6 requires Tenant (Astros) to provide Lots B&C for BBVA Stadium (Shell Energy Stadium) at rates similar to surrounding lots. I think the Astros do this by contracting the operation of the lots out to LAZ parking (I think). Also go to page 10 of this (Harris County Sports Authority has most of the legal documents posted). Basically Landlord of the Astros (HCHSA) has to help the Astros build a parking garage in the area around the stadium after Lot B gets taken by TXDOT. https://www.houstonsports.org/wp-co...cipal_Proj_Docs_-_Executed_as_of_20180401.pdf
Something I learned recently is across the organization in all facets, the Dynamo/Dash are "building for success". In other words, while they aren't successful now, struggle to sell out, get virtually no media coverage, etc they are developing all the systems, processes and facilities on the assumption that on the field success is going to come and they need everything ready for it when it does. On another thread, I think it was Brian Gilchrest that pointed out Segal is a real estate private equity guy. The way you make money in that space is by taking something undervalued, investing in building it out and then selling it for a multiple of your investment. So assume your numbers above are correct. What they've done with the East Club is take a seat that generated $800 of annual revenue and converted it to one that makes 3x that. Are they all sold today? I doubt it, but they don't need to be. He's not looking solely at how much money he's making today, he's looking at what he's making 3-5 years from now. Since he's taken over, the maximum potential per match revenue has increased significantly as a result of the investments they are making. Personally, I am rapidly coming to despise the East Club. The TV optics are horrible, my high school son picked up on what they are doing overall and made the comment yesterday that, "they are shifting to a corporate and higher value customer but in the process destroying atmosphere". He's right, but that's the way American sports work unfortunately. I remember growing up going to Chicago Blackhawks games at Chicago Stadium. That place had all the atmosphere in the world. Just being in the stands was fun. Then United Center gets built, it's much more focused around the same kind of stuff the Dynamo are doing and the folks that brought the atmosphere got priced out. The stands were no longer as fun, but the Bulls/Blackhawks were making shit-ton more money.
Correct. This has been trending from the NBA to the NHL to the EPL for years now. Find ways to bring in corporate ticket packages via suites or lower bowl midfield seats or as we now have it here at Shell Stadium, this new East Club suite combined with midfield seats that appear terribly empty, at the axing of the fan and their families who are generations into loyalty to the team. The one significant flaw is that demand for corporate suites is directly dependent on the local corporate economic situation and of course how in demand MLS pro soccer is for entertainment. Which we have all witnessed before starting in 2014 and on where the focus from The Rob to downtown ushered in this mindset at our FO suits to chase the corporate dollar and allow the core Dynamo fan base to rot away as our suits went long on the corporate dollar. Then the rug got pulled out from our suits when the team started to really slide in quality. The first to not care anymore are corporations and their multiple pro sports suites around the Houston pro scene. Astros hit a home run and our Dynamo can't even get to first base these last 10 seasons. So we found ourselves circa 2018 with an FO that banked on the corporate to keep coughing up high price suites and started to at the same time speak to all of us with a straight face that it dependent on us fans in the stands to keep the revenue stream of our hard earned dollars to float the club. Which by 2020 was a plan spiraling out of their control. As a long time oil and gas businessman, it is perfectly ok to pursue the corporate dollar, but with pro soccer in the U.S. and Canada, the sport is not entrenched like the other traditional leagues are, thus any wise FO must be soccer savvy enough to know the room, know their local soccer culture and deliver consistent performance to us in the stands. The corporate dollars are ripe for the earning herein our tremendous corporate business community, yet that stream needs constant selling and very product demand to retain them as MLS goes.
The way it is setup you do not exit the stadium and return-entry. Everything is inside the perimeter fence/wall. The fence/wall just bulges out around the East club. I followed it out and around easily and intuitively at the first game.
Right on. No re-entry policy is intact. Check Does one go outside the stadium onto a covered fence/wall route? So if it is raining and or direct Texas Summer sun blasts, a family of parents n their kiddos are subject to the weather in our FO's new route?
One thing I’ve noticed as well for this year is they don’t seem to have a “stadium host” for the video board show. Last few years it was the blonde lady. The part where I most noticed this was the awarding of the Hustletown flag to the player of the match. They don’t make as big of a production of it this year and that’s the main place I’m not seeing the host.
If you are in the Sports Deck, aren't you contributing to the problem? I kind of find it funny a premium seat holder is offended at other premium seating areas.