Tyler Clark
Tyler Clark has enjoyed a home-field advantage over the course of his 10-year career with HOK as a sports architect. Clark, 32, grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, considered the home of sports design and where HOK’s sports, recreation and leisure group is headquartered. Still, it took him a while to make the connection during his formative years.
“I knew we had some iconic venues in town such as Arrowhead Stadium, but I didn’t know where they came from or who developed them,” Clark said. From the time he was a youngster, Clark always loved to sketch and draw things and was also a big sports fan. He especially loved soccer, which he played four years in high school and recreationally at Kansas State University, where he studied architecture.
“The scale and scope of the professional game was exciting to me,” he said. “There was always something intriguing about the international attention on some of these matches and the large number of eyeballs on these venues through those events.” In middle school, a sports architect with Populous visited Clark’s class to discuss his profession and brought site photos of the Baltimore Ravens stadium, among the firm’s projects. Clark was intrigued when told the stadium was designed in Kansas City.
At K-State, Clark grabbed the opportunity to connect with HOK personnel through the company’s sponsorship of a studio at the Big 12 school. He sent cold emails to designers in Kansas City, asking to tour their offices and respective projects. It paid off. HOK hired Clark straight out of college in the summer of 2015. His first project was at Hard Rock Stadium, home of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins.
Clark’s job was to complete a punch list of items tied to the first phase of a major renovation, before he went back to Kansas City to help design the final two phases of redevelopment.
“My initial role was to check six to eight different things on every seat, from the number plate to the armrest,” Clark said. “It was grueling. I did 20,000 seats personally over three weeks. It was a lot of physical labor and my first taste of the industry, getting the building ready for football season, a fun way to learn.”
His passion for soccer led to working on CityPark in St Louis and the New York City Football Club project in Queens, a pair of Major League Soccer facilities. CityPark, a $460 million stadium, opened in March 2023. The NYCFC building, a $780 million venue, breaks ground in September and is expected to open in 2027.
“It’s been two straight years of full-time work on that one,” Clark said in mid August. “It’s an intense project and things are a little different there than what I’m used to.”
He now shifts his attention to planning renovations to Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers, which will top $1 billion over the course of financing those upgrades.
“It’s all about ROI and can we do it for less money and make it efficient,” Clark said. “That’s the scrutiny we’re under as designers in this space. The decisions we make every day are moving the needle millions of dollars. We need to remind ourselves of the joy of the industry. It’s a huge privilege to be part of it.”
