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Austin Toros at Cedar Park Center
The first thing this newcomer to the Cedar Park Center noticed, more than a year after its opening, is the roof. It’s comparatively low. Inside, the suburban arena northwest of Austin feels half as tall as the Erwin Center at the University of Texas. Imagine, if you will, the UT arena without the upper sections.
The smaller volume creates a more intimate sports experience, and I imagine even more so for concerts and special events. At the same time, the lower seating capacity also decreases the potential intensity of fans screaming in unison (capacity at Cedar Park is 6,800 for sports games and 8,500 for concerts and special events, according to its ticketing website).
A guest of Toros management — I attended games when the team played at the Austin Convention Center — I was escorted to court-side seats. My shoes rested on the boards. This altered my perspective enormously. The players seemed taller. The ball flew faster. The awesome talent — and flaws — of the team were magnified far greater than I had ever experienced at the Erwin Center, where I never sat remotely that close!
I noticed almost right away the relaxed body language of the spectators around the court. This could be attributed to the lower emotional investment for a minor-league team in a city brimming with sports franchises. Yet fans paid fairly close attention throughout this game, even when the Toros fell behind Tulsa 66ers by more than 20 points. This almost never happens at Dell Diamond, where it seems a full third of the attendees watch not an inning of the Express games.
The family sitting to my right were from Pflugerville. This was their first Toros game in Cedar Park as well. They were guests of the management, too, because the dad worked for a bank that leases a suite at the center. These shallow upper boxes — not glassed in — stood mostly empty for this particular game.
The Pflugerville family neatly matched the demographics of the big crowd (I’d guess 5,000). Virtually no spectator fit into the 18 to 30 age bracket, which naturally fills a third of the seats at the Erwin Center. Instead, it was parents and kids, in far more ethnic variety than at UT, which, for whatever reasons, continues to attract a overwhelmingly white following.
Online TV host D-Train emceed the novelty games during the breaks. The Capital City Dancers kicked up spangly jazz moves. The sale and consumption of beer takes up a lot of energy at Cedar Park, but it didn’t fuel the kind of bad behavior one sometimes encounters at major-league arenas.
At half-time, I talked to more fans, as well as to employees of the Toros and the center. They reported that attendance is up 50 percent after the move from the Convention Center, which is unsurprising, given the oddly diffuse experience of watching basketball in a big, raw box, as was the case in downtown Austin. Cedar Park is far superior for the Toros.
You may have noticed that I give no names. That’s because no names were given. Or my conversation mates, whose names I gleaned, asked not to be identified. I can understand corporate employees following protocol that leads a reporter to an official spokesman, but it never ceases to amaze me that, when I visit the suburbs, ordinary people clam up. No names. No pictures.
I’m sympathetic. They live away from Austin’s social swirl in part to secure privacy. I always respect their wishes, unless there’s a compelling news rationale, and, of course, there was not on Thursday night.
Leaving the horizontally spacious center — the lobbies form, not a doughnut, as at the Erwin Center, but a kind of wide horseshoe to allow for a large entryway from the support areas to the arena floor — I had time to consider the parking. There seems to be plenty of it, although I can imagine traffic might be tricky entering and leaving the grounds on one of those concert nights. (From the south, the center is reached via a U-turn from the 183A toll road extension.)
As I discussed with Pflugerville Father, the center is really not that far from downtown Austin. If one leaves town after rush hour, the trip is less than 30 minutes, door to door. I can’t imagine, though, trying MoPac and 183 north before 7 p.m. on a weeknight.
I flinched a bit at the $10 parking fee. I know that’s paltry compared to what one might pay at Jerry World, but still, it stings because there’s virtually no alternative. Nobody is walking here. Would have been cool to take Metro Rail there, but I don’t think there’s a Cedar Park stop. There are no nearby hotels, offices, restaurants or shopping districts — yet — as one often finds around sports arenas. But they may come with time.
The main thing: The Toros have a fine, new home, which they share with the amazing Texas Stars hockey team (it went to the finals its first season). Sometimes, the teams play on the same days, which must give the center staff a workout.
I expect to return to the center for a Stars game this season.
Jesse Drohen photo on Flickr
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By Jesse Drohen
March 15, 2011 2:50 AM | Link to this
Nice article Michael, but can a brotha' get a little "Photo Courtesy of" please? Not sure how my picture uncredited on Flickr, seems pretty clear to me...
Jesse - austinpixels.com