Texas school district's $60M stadium to reopen for graduation after repairs
ALLEN, Texas -- A North Texas school district's $60 million high school football stadium is set to reopen for graduation after being closed due to significant structural defects.
Allen Independent School District's Eagle Stadium is scheduled to be ready for graduation Friday. Last year, a report released by the district revealed cracks and other structural flaws in several areas of the stadium, including the concourse, press box and south scoreboard.
CBSDFW.com reported the cracks were first noticed when the stadium originally opened. Since that time, those cracks multiplied and grew wider -- in places they are one-quarter of an inch to three-quarters of an inch wide.
The contractor and architectural firm paying for the repairs say the cost to fix the stadium has exceeded $10 million. A final total is not yet available.
The companies have also reimbursed the district for engineering fees, which have surpassed $1.8 million, as well as costs incurred because of the stadium's closure and the resulting loss of revenue.
When the stadium opened in 2012, it revived an old argument in Texas about whether communities and their schools have their priorities straight.
In 1982, when the West Texas city of Odessa built a 19,000-seat stadium for a then-unheard-of $5.6 million, it drew scorn from some people who questioned the district's priorities. Odessa would be featured a few years later in the book "Friday Night Lights," a national best-seller that inspired a movie and a TV series.
Ross Perot, the billionaire businessman and former presidential candidate, repeatedly took aim at his home state's football culture as he pushed the state to shed extracurricular activities and increase accountability measures.
"Do we want our kids to win on Friday night on the football field or do we want them to win all through their lives?" Perot said in a 1988 Washington Post column. "That's what we have to start asking ourselves."