Austin FC stadium

The earliest noted development of the tract of land was in 1956, when the land was christened as a 23.5 acre chemical manufacturing plant. The manufacturing plant produced various chemicals for Reichhold Chemicals, generally peroxides, for the majority of its 29 years as a chemical plant. The facility was closed following a series of on-site safety incidents in December, 1985, which made it economically infeasible to operate.[3]

The land was annexed into the Austin city limits on July 19, 1973.[4]

Reichhold's parent company, DIC Corporation, sold the land to the City of Austin in 1995 for $1.4 million, with the city planning on using it as the Austin Water North Service Center. However, during construction of the facility in 2003, an explosion occurred, with workers finding illegally stored chemical waste on the site. Remediation was undertaken, stripping the site down to bedrock. The city sued DIC, and received $3.6 million.[5]

When Precourt Sports Ventures, operator of Columbus Crew SC, announced they were intending to move the team to Austin, city staff identified eight potential sites for a permanent stadium.[6] 10414 McKalla Place was identified as one of those eight sites, and following some public debate, became the prime candidate following the Austin City Council meeting on March 22, 2018.[7] After several sessions, the Austin City Council granted the City Manager the authority to negotiate and execute a lease with the 7-4 vote during a special session on August 15, 2018.[8] The City announced that the lease had been completed and signed on December 19, 2018.[9]

The 20-year lease of the site includes yearly rent of $550,000 beginning in year six, with an additional $3.6 million being given to Capital Metro for transit. The stadium would be fully financed and built with private money, though stadium ownership would be held by the city itself. The club has the ability to extend the lease up to three times, with each extension being ten years.[10]

The approximately 20,500 seat stadium is expected to cost $240 million, with team operator Precourt Sports Ventures privately financing the construction.[11] Other elements for the 24-acre site and surroundings include green space, potential housing, and mixed-use retail.

In March 2019, Precourt Sports named Austin Commercial as the construction manager and Gensler as the lead architect for the stadium, and announced that groundbreaking will take place in September 2019.[2]

Re-zoning the site to stadium requirements passed Austin City Council unanimously on June 6, 2019.[12]

On August 19, 2019, A site plan for the Austin FC stadium in North Austin has been approved by the city of Austin, Texas.[13]

The stadium will sit alongside Capital Metro's Red Line commuter rail tracks, and the closest existing station on the Red Line is Kramer Station, which is about a 0.5 mile (0.8km) walk from the soccer stadium's location. As part of Capital Metro's Project Connect transit plan, a new station called McKalla Place will be constructed directly adjacent to the soccer stadium, about 0.5 miles (0.8km) south of the existing Kramer Station.[14] This would allow people to walk directly from the Red Line station to the soccer stadium without having to cross any roads, and would provide a much shorter walk to the stadium. The existing Kramer Station would be relocated to the Broadmoor campus, which sits about 0.6 miles (0.9km) north of the existing Kramer Station. The station at Broadmoor would be named Broadmoor Station and the existing Kramer Station would be removed.[14]

Bus connections to the stadium include MetroRapid route 803 and MetroBus routes 3, 383, 392, and 466.[15]

• Official website