What to Know
- McKinney ISD hopes to kick off football season in new $70 million stadium Aug. 30.
- Repairs to cracks in the concourse not found to compromise strength; will be postponed until after football and soccer season.
- Repairs to be made at the expense of the builder and architect.
The McKinney Independent School District plans to kick off the 2018 football season at their new $70 million stadium later this month and will postpone repairing cracks found in concourses until after the football and soccer seasons.
The district's new 12,000-seat stadium and event center was expected to be completed in December 2017, but several deep cracks found in January in the home and visitor concourses and lower bowl areas delayed the opening.
Earlier this week it was determined the cracks did not compromise the strength of the slabs on the concourses, though the cracks could eventually allow water to seep onto and corrode reinforcing steel.
"At this time, all repairs to bring the home concourse, visitor concourse and concourse lower bowl wall up to anticipated long-term maintenance and durability expectations are scheduled to take place after the completion of the 2018-2019 football and soccer seasons with no impact to the start of the 2019-2020 seasons," the district said in an article on their website.
The first event scheduled at the stadium is an Aug. 30 football game between McKinney North and McKinney high schools. Proposals to fix the stadium cracks before the seasons began would have required that games be played elsewhere for the 2018-2019 seasons.
“I am optimistic that we’re going to play the full 2018-2019 football and soccer seasons at the new stadium this year,” McKinney ISD Superintendent Dr. Rick McDaniel said in the online article. “From the spring of 2016, we have dreamt of opening this stadium and event center that would serve our community for years to come. Our seniors have awaited the opportunity to play and perform in that stadium, and it is our intent that they do so from the first game of the season.”
Manhattan Construction and Stantec Architecture assured the district they will not incur any additional costs for investigations into the cracking and needed repairs to the new facility.
“While the MISD stadium home concourse, visitor concourse (investigation ongoing) and concourse lower bowl wall (investigation ongoing) pose long-term maintenance and durability issues, Manhattan and Stantec have assured MISD those issues are in no way an impediment to full enjoyment of the facility for the upcoming football and soccer seasons,” said MISD Chief Financial Officer Jason Bird.
NBC 5 consulted with engineer Tom Witherspoon, who is not involved with the stadium project, to review reports on the cracking at the stadium. Witherspoon most recently reviewed the second report on July 30 and said repairs would likely involve re-pouring concrete. He agreed repairs could wait until next year because the report found the cracks don't pose a threat to safety.
A final report on the third section of cracks, located in the lower bowl wall, has not yet been made public.
