Houston to bid for Super Bowl LI (UPDATE: Houston lands 2017 Super Bowl!)

Light show looks good at night. Still look like **** during the day.

 

Seriously? A light show?

I've said it before... if there was a clear/obvious/useful/can't-miss proposition for how to use the Dome, it would have come to the forefront at some point over the last 10 years.

All the proposals thus far "could" work... but they're still not obvious enough to have somebody pay for it on the spot (nor are any of them likely to pass a public vote).

At some point, you have to put the place out of its misery. Far more historic venues have been torn down/built over... its one thing to say that Houston doesn't value history, but its another to just have an old/condemned building sitting there literally wasting away.

 

it's a giant hairy wart on the face of houston while the entire nation will be watching.

 

I heard tearing it down is going to cost a lot of money too due to the asbestos.

 

I'd take the one-time cost vs. what is happening now... also if they do attempt a venture, there's a high chance that the overall cost will be more than what its costing to tear it down, along with maintenance costs, and no guarantee that any venture will have long-lasting staying power.

 

If you mean Yankee Stadium, land/space in different in the NorthEast, epecially NYC.

They do need to do something with the building if kept. There's another debacle going on across 610. Astro World has been gone over a decade and still nothing.

 

The Houston Rodeo bought half (48 acres) of the land across from 610, probably just to keep it undeveloped.

 

Just because Houston has more land, its still not an excuse to keep an old building rotting there.

Yankee Stadium, Boston Garden, Chicago Stadium, Comiskey Park, Texas Stadium (plenty of space in Irving/Dallas).... they all hosted plenty of memorable events, and fans knew when it was time to let them go.

That's the ever-lasting question... what do they really do with it? What can they do with it other than make it a venue for sports? If its that hard to figure out, there's probably not going to be a great solution.

And as it is, the empty lot that once housed Astroworld is NOT an eyesore... the Astrodome is.

In hindsight, should have been razed at the time they were building NRG.... they could have built it right at the same spot.

 

The ground over there is highly contaminated and will cost a lot of money to remediate (also one of the major issues with the Dome as it's filled with asbestos and other cancer causing contaminates). That's why it hasn't been developed, yet. I've been told they need to remove something like the top 3-4' of soil of the entire property. That's no easy undertaking and you have to have somewhere to put the contaminated material.

 

Man we Texans sure know how to Salt our lands and ruin them. Is there any other big city that can't remove an old stadium because of toxic waste and contamination?

It's like the early developers just said, "**** it, let it be their problem"

 

The 8th Wonder of the World is better historically than all those places.

A casino is perfect, but Texas' red state mentality... smh

It's not so much the empty lot (which itself is bad), it's that an attraction was taken away to have it. IIRC, AstroWorld wasn't losing money.... they just claimed the land was worth more than AW was making.

Besides, I like looking at the Astrodome. Seeing it on TV, especially during national broadcast.. having commentators discuss it.

Makes you wonder what the plan was before NRG was built. AW was still there.

There is much development within one mile of that area. Plenty homes, retail stores, industrial parks, office buildings, hotels, and still getting more developed today.

Is the Astrodome and AW the only contaminated spots in the area?

 

When RE Bob Smith donated that land those were large working oil fields. I say tear that dump down and prepare to use modern technology and extract oil during the next boom via horizontal drilling and allow us to never have to pay another penny for sports facilities.

 

Don't the Raiders need a stadium?

 

Spare everybody with that unofficial title... and its no longer close to what it was. It will never be that way again because its never going to be a sports facility. And besides being the first dome (but not the first indoor sports arena/stadium), it was not more historic than the above venues in terms of hosting some of the greatest moments/teams ever.

Ok... so while that isn't happening, any other suggestions?

Astroworld was a dump.... especially compared to other 6 flags parks. It had its run, it ended... and they tore it down. Much like they should do to the Astrodome.

Its an eyesore... and they won't be keeping it around simply for national tv commentators to discuss it.

 

Foo Fighters for the halftime performer...

Let's make it happen CF.

No more collaborations. One band. Kicking ass.

 

Ridiculous

Where the astrodome was is a giant vacant lot full of overgrown weeds, one of the biggest eyesores in the entire city

The astrodome just looks like a stadium. It doesn't look vacant or occupied when you drive by on the freeway, if just looks like a stadium. By that logic, NRG is also an eyesore

 

Anybody with a semblance of ties to being a native Houstonian knows the Astrodome is an abandoned, condemned, rat-infested ses pool. A vast shell of its former self.

It sits there, rotting away.

That is why I consider it an eyesore. They put astroworld out of its misery.

 

I'm not going to go into all that it takes to test and eventually use the land. It is possible for one parcel to be contaminated and another not. It's also possible to remove the contamination. With enough money, pretty much anything can be done.

This. I LOVED going to the Dome as a kid and adult. But it's just a rotting piece of crap that needs to be blown the f*** up already...or have something done with it already. Having it sit in it's current state during another Super Bowl is embarrassing.

 

Its something that Houston did that was a ahead of its time. Houston is a bland city with no real history. Why destroy one of the few unique things about the city. I say keep the dome.

 

That fact won't change, even when the Dome is gone.

If you want to keep it, come up with a viable use for it (along with the ability to pay for it)... just don't leave it in its current state. Anybody who values history would be ashamed and appealed as to the current state of this 'historical landmark'.

I'm just not confident there's a viable use for it, other than it being a sports stadium.