With months of arduous back-and-forth negotiations now completed and financing options falling into place, only minor hurdles remain before construction could begin this fall on the proposed Houston Dynamo downtown stadium.
Oliver Luck, president of the Major League Soccer team, says although he did not expect the deal to drag out this long, he never believed the project would be derailed since serious discussions began with the city 18 months ago.
“Considering the downtown location, the growth of the sport and the changing (racial) demographics in this city, and the fact that the team was going to carry the preponderance of risk — unlike the other big sports stadiums in town that were mostly publicly financed — I really was never dismayed during the whole process,” Luck says. “How long it took is a different story, but now I feel we’re close.”
At least three or more undisclosed banks have submitted term sheets to finance the bulk of the stadium’s construction costs, with separate negotiations on the books to provide financing for the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, the six-block area in which the stadium would be built within a stone’s throw of Minute Maid Park.
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