HOUSTON (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — According to the Houston Chronicle, the team's owners AEG are making plans for a new $75 million, 22,000 capacity stadium. A plot of privately-held land between the George R. Brown Convention Center and Minute Maid Park is currently under consideration as the location for the facility.
The team is expected to finance a large part of the expense incurred by the construction but they are also looking to the city to pick up some of the tab.
"We're prepared to put in the preponderance of the money for the stadium," Oliver Luck, the team's president and GM told the Chronicle, "I'm reluctant to say whether it would be $60 million, $62 million or $72 million, but we are asking the city for some financial help, no two ways about it."
The mayor of Houston, Bill White, has expressed a disinclination to pony up dough for the new stadium and has pointed to the fact that tax revenue is still being used to pay off bonds issued to support construction of baseball, football and basketball facilities.
Andy Icken, the city's deputy director of public works and lead negotiator for the deal told the Chronicle that "The mayor has said he would not like to use any money that could be used for firefighters or policemen."
How AEG will respond to this fiscal challenge from the mayor remains to be seen. AEG moved the team from San Diego originally, after failing to secure a fiscally-friendly stadium deal there. – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
