PNC Stadium

After years of playing home games in a football stadium, the Houston Dynamo finally have a home to call their own. The first soccer-specific stadium in Major League Soccer (MLS) to be located in a city’s downtown district, PNC Stadium (formerly BBVA Compass Stadium) also hosts Texas Southern University football and serves as a multi-purpose concert venue. The stadium’s iconic, gem-like exterior façade has garnered rave reviews and become a landmark destination in Houston’s up-and-coming east downtown neighborhood.

Walter P Moore provided structural engineering services for the stadium, which features an intimate, 360-degree seating bowl with capacity for 22,000 fans for soccer and football, and 28,000 for concerts.

After considering all seating systems options, a combination of precast concrete stadia units on the sidelines and a prefabricated aluminum seating system in the end zones was selected to provide an economical bowl with a premium seating option. Walter P Moore’s design utilized latest UK grandstand vibration performance criteria to ensure fan comfort.

Sideline canopies cantilever 75’ to provide shade to the upper bowl and suites, which are only 11 rows from the pitch. The concert stage is sheltered from the elements by a end zone canopy extending 125’ above the south end of the pitch that boasts a 120,000lbs. show rigging capacity.

The stadium is wrapped in 94,000 square feet of a sparkling, expanded aluminum facade. Our team performed a detailed digital analysis and geometric rationalization of the facade system to create economy through minimizing structural steel tonnage, incorporating repetitive details and components into a seemingly random system.