Cracks in Concrete Delay Opening of $70 Million McKinney ISD Stadium

Officials with the McKinney Independent School District say they don't know when their new $70 million stadium and event center will open after several cracks have been found in the concrete.

During a school board meeting Tuesday night, McKinney ISD Chief Financial Officer Jason Bird highlighted three areas where cracks were found in January 2018 in the home concourse, visitor concourse and home and visitor concourse lower bowl wall areas.

"In short, we have greater than anticipated cracking," said Bird.

During his presentation, Bird showed several photographs of the cracks and highlighted the greatest area of concern as a stairwell leading to the lower bowl.

Due to the cracks and the potential risk posed to maintenance and durability, Bird said they can't say when the 12,000-seat stadium will be ready to host its first game or event.

"The reality is I cannot tell you when it is going to be," Bird told the board. "I will tell you that every effort is in place. These guys right behind me are absolutely efforting as much as you can possibly ask in order to find and finish the investigative process in order to figure out what needs to be done, if anything, with each one of our concerns."

Bird said the stadium is expected to be used for more than 50 years and that long-term durability and low maintenance are paramount to the project's success.

He added they've now hired a third-party forensic engineer to determine the cause of the cracking and how to go about fixing the issues. Officials with the builder, Manhattan Construction, and architect, Stantec, said they will bear the responsibility of any repair costs once it's determine what caused cracking -- design or construction.

"As we navigate though the final challenges of this historic project, the residents of McKinney can rest assured Manhattan will deliver as promised," said Mark Penny, senior vice president of Manhattan Construction Company said in a statement released Friday. "Once complete, the new stadium for MISD will be something the entire McKinney community will be proud of. Manhattan has a long history of delivering exceptional projects for their customers. We can assure the people of McKinney the new stadium will not be an exception to that tradition."

The stadium and event center was originally expected to be completed in Dec. 2017, but delays forced the date to be pushed back.

Representatives for both Manhattan and Stantec were present at Tuesday's board meeting and answered questions about the cracks, however those answers were given away from the podium and off-mic.

The district will provide another construction update at the Board of Trustees monthly meeting in June.

In the summer of 2014, cracks in the foundation of Allen's $60 million Eagle Stadium forced it's closure for nearly a year while crews worked hundreds of hours to make structural repairs.

Nelson Forensics, the same company hired to perform an analysis of the McKinney ISD stadium, did the forensic engineering analysis of Allen's stadium.