The Houston Texans are building a second all-inclusive club in the upper deck of Reliant Stadium.
The Chairmans Club, the name of the newly developed space, covers about 500 seats upstairs in the south end, supported by a 12,000-square-foot lounge that was previously part of the upper-level concourse.
Season-ticket prices for the new club are $140 a game plus a $1,000 seat license fee. The ticket price covers a buffet meal served until halftime plus soft drinks and bottled water, said John Schriever, the Texans’ vice president of ticketing and event management.
Hot dogs and nachos will be served throughout the game at the Chairmans Club. Alcohol is a separate cost, and cash bars will be set up inside the lounge, Schriever said.
Last season, those seats cost $35 a game as a season ticket, he said.
The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, the Texans’ co-tenant at Reliant Stadium, is a partner in the project. Together, they are sharing the investment of more than $1 million to build the Chairmans Club, Schriever said.
The retrofit involves carpet, marble bars, sofas, cocktail tables, rest room upgrades and the addition of 32 televisions dispersed throughout the club. Twenty 50-inch screens will hang in the lounge, Schriever said.
As of last week, the Texans had sold 100 seats in 10 days as team officials contact fans on a waiting list for season tickets. The team relocated 85 people with season tickets in that area last season. No one with existing seats upgraded to the new club, Schriever said.
When it opens in August, the Chairmans Club will serve as a “bookend” to the existing Directors Club in the north end zone. That club opened in 2007 and has about the same number of seats. Those season tickets are also $140 a game, Schriever said.
The past five years, the Directors Club has generated incremental net revenue of $150,000 to $170,000 a season after the Texans subtract staffing costs and the catering fees they pay Aramark, the stadium’s concessionaire.
The Texans are designing the new club in-house. Manhattan Construction, the same general contractor that built Reliant Stadium, is constructing the space.
The Chairmans Club comes four years after the team first considered adding the second upper-deck club. At that time funding was an issue, and the rodeo and Harris County, the stadium’s owner, were not ready to move ahead with construction, Schriever said.
