Portal:Houston/Selected article/April 2008

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Reliant Stadium is a multiple-use stadium in Houston, Texas. The stadium is the home of the National Football League's Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Texas Bowl, host to many international soccer matches for the USA National Soccer Team and other events. The stadium served as the host facility for Super Bowl XXXVIII on February 1, 2004.

Reliant Stadium is part of a collection of venues (including the Astrodome), which are collectively called Reliant Park. The entire complex is named for Reliant Energy under a 32-year, $300 million naming rights deal in 2000. Reliant Stadium has a seating capacity of 71,500, a total square footage of 1.9 million square feet with 97,000 sq. ft. of natural grass playing surface. The stadium was constructed at the cost of 352 million dollars. Reliant Stadium is the first facility in the NFL to have a retractable roof.

The Houston NFL Holdings group came to HOK Sport to begin the schematic design for the first-ever NFL retractable roof football stadium in 1997. The intention was to create a football stadium to replace the Astrodome that would operate like an open-air facility but have the intimacy and comfort of an indoor arena. With the design for football and the square footage requirements of the rodeo, the building was designed in the 1.9 million square foot range.