Is the future of Dynamo Stadium on Westpark? Could be.
Dynamo President Oliver Luck is in talks with a developer about building a soccer stadium on private land about a mile south of the Galleria.
The Dynamo have not abandoned plans to build on a 12 acres of city-owned land downtown, Luck said.
But the Midway Companies approached Luck recently with a concept that would put the stadium in the midst of a 30-acre mixed-used development just west of Loop 610.
“They have not yet presented a full-blown plan to us,” Luck said. “It’s an interesting location and certainly worth looking at.”
Swamplot had the first inklings of this, while Miya, Prime Property, and Hair Balls have more. The good news is that this location appears to be near a University Line station. The bad news is that vehicular access is pretty limited, and I would expect traffic getting in and out to suck. I’d call this better than nothing, but not better than the downtown location. If as Hair Balls indicates, however, that Commissioners Court considers this to be the city’s baby and not any of their business, then it may get serious consideration. I just wonder, if it comes to that, how much money the city and/or county will have to spend at that location to make it viable, not just for a soccer stadium but for that 30-acre mixed use development. The roads are narrow, there are no sidewalks, and I’d bet drainage will be an issue. Midway CEO Brad Freels may say he likes doing things through the private sector, but I don’t see him putting up the cash to fix those things. I think it’s fair to wonder not just if this is a better deal for the Dynamo, but if this is any better a deal for Houston and Harris County than downtown would be.
The Galleria is definitely a better deal than downtown. There are precious few streets left to get from the east side to downtown. Read Christof Spieler’s blog post:
http://www.ctchouston.org/intermodality/2008/01/10/offsides/
Quote: “The streets that would be closed by the proposed site are Capitol and Rusk, two important routes in and out of Downtown to the east. They’re all the more important because sports venues and the convention center have already blocked 7 streets in a 13 block stretch.”
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