The Houston Dynamo soccer team has broken ground on a $120 million stadium east of downtown Houston in Harris County Precinct One.

The stadium will be the home venue for the Major League Soccer team and Texas Southern University’s football team. The stadium will be located just east of U.S. 59 on 12 acres bordered by Texas, Walker, Dowling and Hutchins streets, and is expected to open in 2012. The stadium will be owned by the City of Houston and Harris County and leased to the Dynamo for 30 years. The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority will act as the property manager for the City and County.

This unique public-private venture involves the Dynamo spending $80 million for construction. The City and County will share in the land purchase and the funding of infrastructure for the stadium.

The City's and the County's contributions to the development will be funded by the local tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ) that the city created in the area surrounding the stadium. A TIRZ involves freezing the property tax revenues at their level when the zone was created. The increased increment that is generated by increases in tax roll values is put back into the zone to pay for infrastructure and capital improvements.