I'd love to see a park put there (think Discovery Green Part 2), but it would be kind of pointless if they didn't let people use it year-round.
Maybe with some heavy landscaping and greenery of some kind; there's literally nothing lower class than a parking lot carnival.
I wasn't aware the grounds of Reliant were considered a neighborhood, or part of one. Let alone "the" hood. Discovery made it, this place can make it.
I still wonder why we didn't implode the thing when they started to build the Reliant Stadium. The bonds the city owes on it was that big of an impasse?
I wonder if a decent analogy would be owing money on a car that then gets totaled. No collateral = no credit, and the bank calls in the cash ASAP. Believe it or not the accountants who make the spreadsheets actually care about yearly budgets and fiscal prudence (since they're the ones who actually have to explain stuff mid- and end-month).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Study commissioned by Texans and Rodeo 2 demolish Dome and add 2,500 parking spaces costs $35.1 mil. Another study said $64 mil 4 a plaza.</p>— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/status/314114364896583680">March 19, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Total cost to demolish Dome and pave it over for 2,500 parking spots is $29 million, not $35.1. Hey, what's another $6 mil?</p>— John McClain (@McClain_on_NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/McClain_on_NFL/status/314120925211676673">March 19, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Bob Mcnair will win the bid to demolish, build another parking lot with a grant from the city he doesn't have to repay and then charge a premium for platinum lot parking. 3. Profit
If they can tear down Boston Garden and Yankee Stadium, there shouldn't be much in the way (nostalgia wise) to tear down the Astrodome. The fact that its been more than a decade and not a single good idea on what to do with it has come up... that's a sign that they likely should have just done away with it awhile ago.
I would have liked to see them reduce the seating capacity to say 45,000 seats, improve the sight lines, put in an HDTV the size of the old scoreboard, and constuct it with the idea of hosting special events like allstar games, ncaa tournaments, etc, plus it could he a home field to UH and Rice at a cost that is likely less than what they would pay for a stadium.
I'll be said to see it go, but at this point, it's been too long to really do much with. Demolishing it is probably the best idea at this point.
One of the sticking points has been that it just costs too much damned money to do anything with it, be it destruction or renovation.
The cost for this would be almost just as much as building an entirely new stadium. (First bringing the done up to code, then the renovations). Additionally, you then have a building competing for events that the other buildings already host. Houston does not need another sports venue. UH and Rice would prefer their own new places (UH already getting that). Toyota center and Reliant handle the all-star game/NCAA stuff just fine. The dynamo already have their place. Again, if there was a great solution to the dome problem, other than tearing it down, somebody would have thought of it by now.
