RFQs for architects went out Monday. We will select an architect by March 26 who will begin work on the design in April. I would be surprised if the architect is not one of: Ellerbe Becket, HKS or Populus (formerly HOK Sport). We should have an accurate picture of what the stadium will look like by summer.
Construction will start in December of 2012 with the demolition of Robertson Stadium after Houston finishes its final season in C-USA.
Houston will likely play in Reliant Stadium (and/or possibly some games at Rice Stadium) in 2013 during its first year of Big East play.
The new Houston football stadium will take 20 months to build and will be ready in the summer of 2014.
It will seat 40,000 initially and will be built to be expandable to 50,000 and 60,000 in 10,000 seat increments as the need arises.
Approximately 4000 of the seats will be premium seats (club level, loge, suite level).
In addition to new lighting and sound systems, new scoreboards and videoboards, we will probably be going from natural grass to some sort of field turf.
The stadium will be built on the current site of Robertson Stadium, and the downtown skyline view will be preserved both for the fans in the South and East stands, and also in the Club Level on the West side.
On related notes, the new 2500 car "stadium" parking garage will open this Spring. It sits right between Hofheinz Pavilion and Robertson Stadium. One of the prerequisites for expanding the football stadium was to account for the additional parking strain. The garage is mixed use with restaurant and retail on the first floor.
Also, the Metro SE rail line is currently projected to open in 2014. It runs from downtown directly past Robertson Stadium. Future out-of-town visitors can stay in one of Houston's fine downtown hotels and simply ride the train 3-4 miles to the game and back.
