Texas voters willingly approve $62.8 million high school football stadium

The most expensive high school football stadium in America, that is.
By Sam Laird  on 
Texas voters willingly approve $62.8 million high school football stadium
Ron Poe Stadium in McKinney, Texas, which will be replaced by the new project. Credit: LM Otero/AP

A high school football stadium was built in Allen, Texas, in 2012. It cost taxpayers $60 million. 

Eighteen months later, the $60 million high school football stadium was shut down indefinitely. Cracks in the concrete made it a safety hazard. 

That was 2014. Now it's 2016, and voters from a town 10 minutes up the road just decided to finance a stadium of their own. 

Again, for high school football. This time, for $62.8 million. 

Welcome to McKinney, Texas. 

McKinney voters this weekend passed a $220 million school bond proposal that includes $62.8 million allocated to build a 12,000-seat football stadium ("and events center"!) for the school district's three high schools. The bond proposal passed, according to The Dallas Morning News

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“We’re visionaries, and we believe we have a vision for McKinney ISD that will propel us forward for a long time," Superintendent Rick McDaniel told the paper. 

The McKinney Independent School District has 29 schools, according to its official site. As a comparison point, the stadium's $62.8 million price tag would provide each with a windfall of more than $2.1 million if spread evenly among them. 

Mike Giles, who lead a group opposing the project, called the new stadium an "embarrassment," per the Morning News

The McKinney stadium would be the most expensive high school football stadium in America -- even more than Eagle Stadium in nearby Allen, according to Sports Illustrated

That is, of course, the $60 million high school football stadium that was built in 2012 and forced to close for renovations in 2014. 

It re-opened in 2015. 

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Sam Laird

Sam Laird is Mashable's Senior Sports Reporter. He covers the wide, weird world of sports from all angles -- as well as occasional other topics -- from Mashable's San Francisco bureau. Before joining Mashable in November 2011, his freelance work appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, Slam, and East Bay Express. Sam is a graduate of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and basketball and burritos take up most of his spare time. Follow him on Twitter @samcmlaird.


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