Houston Rodeo Partially Breaks From NRG Park With $300M Campus

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is partially bucking NRG Park to build its own $300 million facility about five miles east.

The Rodeo is building a 1 million-square-foot complex at the corner of Highway 288 and Airport Boulevard. Part of the project will be the construction of their own arena, but some operations will remain at NRG Park. The Rodeo is working on a new lease with the Houston Texans as well as Harris County, according to the Houston Business Journal.

Houston Rodeo president and CEO Chris Boleman told the outlet that this is not a relocation, even though NRG Arena desperately needs a renovation. The new facility is part of the Rodeo’s vision for their centennial celebration in 2032 and beyond, Boleman told the outlet, and the expansion helps chart the course for the next hundred years.

The new complex will have two barns across 860,000 square feet of space and a bigger, more central barn with 140,000 square feet of space. It’ll also have an outdoor cattle yard, and a combination auction hall and sales convention center. While the main rodeo events and concerts will remain at NRG, a smattering of livestock shows, horse shows and other agricultural events will take place at the new facility. Boleman told the publication that the new facility will offer more flexible planning, with year-round events now on the table.

Missouri-based Populous designed the new facility, according to the outlet, and local Clay Development & Construction is the project’s general contractor. The project has been a long time coming, it was discussed and mapped out in 2019, but was put on the back burner during the pandemic.

For years, it seemed like every venue in town other than the rodeo’s stomping grounds in NRG Park was getting a fresh coat of paint. A proposed $1 billion redevelopment of the Astrodome reportedly clashed with the Rodeo’s needs. NRG Stadium received a $55 million facelift ahead of the seven World Cup matches it’s hosting, even as around $2 billion in deferred maintenance looms large over the future of the park.

— Hunter Cooke