Cost rises again for Katy football stadium
$62.5M price tag makes field state’s most expensive
The construction cost for the Katy Independent School District’s second football stadium has risen again, meaning the project will cost about $4.5 million more than the $58 million that voters approved for it in 2014.
KISD’s board of trustees this week unanimously approved spending about $1.6 million to modify turn lanes for roads located next to the stadium site, which include Katy Fort Bend Road and Franz Road.
The modification will ease traffic because the planned stadium is located next to Rhodes Stadium, the existing football field. The money will also pay for underground technology connectivity between the stadiums.
Funding for the changes will come from 2010 bond infrastructure funds, not from the district’s 2014 bond, which totaled more than $748 million and included the stadium cost, according to Peter McElwain, KISD’s architect.
In December, trustees approved spending $2.9 million to build out the stadium’s shell space, which includes a parent drop-off area, a maintenance building and exterior building lighting. The district said then that surplus money from the 2010 bond was funding that project.
The stadium’s $62.5 million cost makes it the most expensive high school stadium in Texas, topping Allen ISD’s $60 million Eagle Stadium, which opened in 2012.
“When the District first acquired the property these facilities sit on, it was with the understanding that there could be an impending need to pay for additional infrastructure costs to ensure traffic safety in and around the complex,” KISD spokeswoman Denisse Coffman wrote in an email. “A traffic study was recently conducted confirming that need.”
The stadium has been a fiercely debated topic in the suburb because of its price tag.
Three years ago, voters rejected a bond package that included a $69 million stadium amid concerns about the cost. The following year, voters approved a revised bond that included a scaledback $58 million stadium.
The stadium will have 12,000 seats, a two-story field house and 4,000 parking spaces.
It is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017.