DALLAS -- A $60 million bond-funded high school football stadium in the northern Dallas suburb of Allen will remain closed for the 2014 football season after consulting engineers found significant structural problems that cannot be repaired quickly, according to Allen Independent School District Superintendent Lance Hindt.
The 18,000-seat stadium, financed as part of a $119 million bond issue approved by voters in 2009 with a 63% majority vote, opened in August 2012.
The stadium was closed Feb. 27 after an initial structural analysis revealed design and construction deficiencies that were causing cracking on the elevated concrete concourse.
Since then, representatives from Allen ISD, Pogue Construction and PBK Architects Inc. have been meeting to determine the scope of the problem and possible solutions, the district said.
As part of those discussions, and as the district's consulting engineer continued to identify the underlying cause of the concrete failure, the companies offered to place $2 million into an escrow account that would help fund the repairs and related costs caused by the stadium's closure, the district said.
However, a legal conflict between their insurance companies has caused the two firms to withdraw their escrow offer that would have been controlled by the school district, Hindt said.
"We were hopeful that the offer of $1 million each by Pogue and PBK would have allowed us to begin a proper repair without the added cost and delay of a lawsuit," Hindt said. "But we now have been informed by both companies that their insurance carriers refused to authorize the escrow payment."
The corporate heads of both companies offered the $2 million escrow after a detailed analysis by the consultants working for AISD said engineering failures were likely responsible for the majority of the problems in the 19-month-old stadium.
Hindt said he was disturbed that the district's effort to have the companies fund an escrow account was stymied by their insurers.
"Our commitment to Allen students and taxpayers remains firm that the stadium be repaired properly at the expense of those responsible for the failure: the architect and the builder," Hindt said. "We wanted to avoid the legal wrangling of which party is responsible for what percentage of the repair and thought we had reached an agreement where each company would put money in escrow for us to use while their legal liability would be worked out later. I am frustrated that the insurers and their lawyers prevented this from happening."
The full extent of the damage will not be known until Nelson Forensics, an engineering consulting firm, reports back to the school district in June, Hindt said.
Allen will play its home football games in neighboring Plano in 2014 and have Plano host two games that were scheduled to be played in Allen, Hindt said. Those games will be played in Allen in 2015, when Allen will have eight home games.
The district's issuer ratings are AA from Standard & Poor's and Aa2 from Moody's Investors Service with stable outlooks. The district's bonds carry triple-A ratings with a guarantee from the Texas Permanent School Fund.
