By SBI SOCCER
Toyota Stadium is about to get a historic new facelift.
FC Dallas unveiled plans on Wednesday for a $39 million project at the stadium featuring more than 100,000 square feet of renovated space, brand new locker rooms, premium seating, a private club and, the National Soccer Hall of Fame Museum.
The plan, which was developed alongside U.S. Soccer, Frisco Independent School District and the City of Frisco, will begin in early 2016 with a proposed completion date at the end of 2017.
“My father Lamar loved this game and he chased his vision of growing soccer in the United States with the same determination he brought to professional football,” said FC Dallas President Dan Hunt. “He had a vision of what the beautiful game could be in America and he spent years watching games and persuading friends to join him.
“This is an incredible opportunity to not only honor his legacy, but all of those who came before him, those who stood beside him, and those in the future who will endeavor to grow the sport of soccer in America. Our family is thrilled to bring the National Soccer Hall of Fame back to prominence here in Frisco, Texas, in the last stadium my father built.”
The project is the first that would see a national sports hall of fame built into an existing stadium. The 24,000 square foot museum is set to be home to a wealth U.S. Soccer memorabilia, including historic Women’s World Cups, CONCACAF Gold Cups, U.S. Open Cups and Olympic medals.
Toyota Stadium will also become the permanent site for the annual induction ceremony.
Prior to moving to Frisco, the National Soccer Hall of Fame was previously located in Oneonta, New York, but closed in 2010 due to financial struggles. It’s collection, which counted over 80,000 items, was placed in storage.
Take a closer look at the planned renovations in the photos below:
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What do you think of the renovations? Excited to see the hall of fame move to Frisco? Plan on visiting?
Share your thoughts below.
The internet amazes and disappoints me all the time.
I’m sorry FCD and Frisco stood up and paid money when no one else would.
I’m sorry Toyota Park is in Frisco. Without that stadium there wouldn’t be a team in the Dallas area to even complain about.
I’m sorry they are spending nearly half of the TOTAL BUDGET from when they built the stadium to improve it.
No one I know cries like this about going to Arlington to watch the Cowboys or Rangers.
Oops, Toyota Stadium.
Thanks to the Hunts for stepping up again.
Thanks to the whiners for providing valuable insight once again, without their contributions US soccer wouldn’t have a need for a HOF.
Good luck to you and your mediocrity. Improvement and critical thinking obviously mean nothing to you.
As long as we can turn it into the academy high school when the HOF tanks like they all do.
*other than
a good temporary fix, i’m sure. but for long term, i’d like to see a separate building, perhaps one that looks like a soccer ball (similar to the old location in new york). but that said, big kudos to the hunts for doing this.
Only the voters of suburbia Texas would agree to use tax dollars for a boondoggle like a US soccer hall of fame. Even the basketball HOF struggles to stay afloat, this soccer HOF will bleed cash.
MLS loves it’s shinny new objects, probably to distract from the fact that the product on the field still sucks and TV ratings have shown almost no growth.
Pablito, or here than being factually wrong on all counts, thanks for the comment.
Except this is decidedly not a shiny object, and already looks like it was built in 1993.
Concorde may be right, at least regarding the roof. The way the sun sets on that stadium, it will still shine through the southwest section and defeat the purpose. Unless the game is at noon, the concept roof doesn’t appear ready to serve its intended purpose. Other than that, I hope the Hall of Fame turns out nice…
Wow….tons of criticism. I don’t see any issues with this at all. $39 million is a lot of damn money, so give them some credit.
Crap images and a well-intentioned project that just reeks of frugal execution. The roof… As long as they’re running a big fat truss the length of the stands, might as well extend the roof beams a little further. They did the hard part already – dumb as the truss may be – the extra shading would be practically free. As it looks, with the roof the height it is, the sun will still hit practically every seat assuming it is facing in any direction but north. Maybe they didn’t want to pay for the sun study? I could have done it for free.
Honestly as an architect I can’t stand it. This is a really easy problem to solve. Roofs can be extremely light and easily reach to the touchline without much effort. So many stadiums getting built today that just rock – they are thought through, well engineered and sufficiently financed, thus really inspire a good atmosphere, and then this, and we have to praise Lamar Hunt because he’s a good patron to the sport and helped it grow. bleehh. I believe that thanks to him MLS now gets the stadium design wrong almost every single time they build. I can only think of 4 exceptions.
fact: Frisco is now the future home of the Dallas Cowboys, Toyota and FedEx. Also, as the Mayor pointed out in the press conference, now every major pro team is represented in Frisco in some way.
Cowboys – HQ there
Rangers – minor league team plays there
Stars – practice there
Mars – D League team plays there
FCD – HQ/Plays there
peet +1 for making too much sense.
Years of low attendance is all people see when they think FCD. They don’t see the growth around the stadium nor take note of the actual attendance increase every year since 2010.
How much history does US soccer have? To me it seems we are still making some
There’s actually a lot. The U.S. federation has been around since 1914.
Back in the 20’s Scotland, then probably the 2nd most players in the world and the games inventors of the “Scotish (passing) game” wanted political pressure put on the US as the US was stealing all their talent. There’s a case to be made that the US was the 3rd best soccer country on the world if not 2nd.
This looks cheap and painfull to see. What a boring concept and unexciting plan for the greatest sport of soccer.
Why not give it to another city like st.louis or even LA.
They should have build the hall of fame in a new stadium, like in LAFC new stadium or as soon as st.louis would be admitted to mls.
Even better, if fc Dallas is really interested, then why not make a new stadium for fc Dallas in DALLAS before the texas rangers move to downtown Dallas.
I feel like doc and LA should have gone for it with their new stadiums coming.
It’s a concept art, expect it to freshen up some.
Why not give it to FCD, they paid for the rights!
FCD is never getting a new stadium with this addition to the one that is barely a decade old on a 20 year lease, don’t expect a move for them – ever.