Lakewood Church Central Campus
| Facility Statistics | |
| Location | 10 Greenway Plaza Houston, Texas 77046 |
| Opened | November 2, 1975 |
| Closed | December 2003 |
| Owner | The City of Houston |
| Construction Cost | $27 million USD |
| Architect | |
| Former Names | |
| The Summit | 1975-1998 |
| Tenants | |
| Houston Aeros (WHA) | 1975-1979 |
| Houston Summit (MISL) | 1978-1980 |
| Houston Rockets (NBA) | 1975-2003 |
| Houston Aeros (IHL/AHL) | 1994-2003 |
| Houston Hotshots (CISL - WISL) | 1994-1997 and 1999-2000 |
| Houston Comets (WNBA) | 1997-2003 |
| Houston Thunderbears (Arena) | 1998-2001 |
| Houston Hotshots (WISL) | 1999-2000 |
| Seating Capacity | |
| 2001 Basketball | 16,285 |
| 2001 Hockey | 15,256 |
The Compaq Center, originally named The Summit, was a basketball and hockey arena in Houston, Texas. It is now the home of Lakewood Church, led by Joel Osteen. The Compaq Center is located about five miles southwest of downtown Houston in the Greenway Plaza mixed-use development.
Construction
In 1971, the NBA San Diego Rockets were purchased by a new ownership group and moved to Houston. The city, however, lacked an indoor arena suitable to host a major sports franchise, so plans were immediately undertaken to construct a new venue. The Rockets played their home games in various local facilities such as Hofheinz Pavilion during the interim.
Completed in 1975, The Summit represented a lavish new breed of sports arena, replete with amenities, that would help the NBA grow from a second-tier professional sport into the multi-billion dollar entertainment industry that it is today. The Omni in Atlanta, McNichols Arena in Denver, and the Coliseum at Richfield in Cleveland were all constructed during this period and remained in service until the growth of the NBA sparked a new arena construction boom in the late 1990s.
Notable Events
The Compaq Center housed the Houston Comets, Houston Aeros, Houston Rockets and several arena football sports teams until they vacated the arena in favor of the new Toyota Center in downtown Houston. Additionally, the arena was a prime Houston venue for popular music concerts and special events such as the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Compaq Center hosted the NBA Finals on four different occasions: 1981, 1986, 1994 and 1995. In 1994 and 1995, the then-Summit was the site of the deciding games in the championship series and of the ensuing celebrations. Compaq Center was also host to championship teams from 1997-2000 when the Houston Comets won the WNBA title for four consecutive years.
The Compaq Center also hosted many professional wrestling matches. Among these, it hosted the WWF Royal Rumble in 1989, WWF No Way Out of Texas in 1998 and WWE Bad Blood in 2003.
Prior to the construction of Toyota Center, Compaq Center was the principal Houston venue for large pop and rock music concerts. The rock band Queen recorded and filmed a heavily bootlegged concert at this venue on December 11, 1977 on the group's News Of The World tour. This concert was considered one of Queen's most famous concerts. Led Zeppelin also performed an acclaimed and extensively bootlegged concert on their record-setting 1977 U.S. tour. A 1981 performance from the rock band Journey at the arena was released as the CD and DVD package Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour in 2005. Other artists of note who have performed at Compaq Center are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, and Madonna.
From Vacancy to Lakewood Church
In 1998, Compaq Center became the first Houston sports arena to sell its naming rights. The Arena Operating Company entered into a five-year, $900,000 deal with then Houston-based Compaq Computer Corporation to change the name of the venue from "The Summit" to Compaq Center. The length of the agreement was significant, because in 2003 the lease that Arena Operating Company held on Compaq Center would expire, and the tenants of the building were lobbying vigorously for the construction of a new downtown venue to replace the aging and undersized arena.
When the sports teams moved to the new Toyota Center in 2003, the City of Houston leased the arena to Lakewood Church, which invested $75 million in renovations to convert the arena into a megachurch. Lakewood Church has an exclusive lease agreement with the City of Houston and is the only tenant allowed to use the former Compaq Center. Lakewood is considered to be one of the largest churches in America.[1]
| Preceded by Hofheinz Pavilion 1971–1975 |
Home of the Houston Rockets 1975–2003 |
Succeeded by Toyota Center 2003–present |