The two ideas I liked the best were stripping it and making it into a park or a huge public transportation hub a la Grand Central Station, with light rail, the rail to sugar land, and Amtrak all connecting inside. Heck the Dome is so big you could make it both.
I stayed at the Gaylord in Dallas and it does have a setup that looks perfect for the Astrodome. But, if the Astrodome really was so great for a hotel, you'd think Mariott would have proposed it already. My guess is it's more cost efficient to build from scratch than to repurpose a 40 year old arena. If there was a hotel project that made sense (even with a taxpayer subsidy) I'd think it'd already be forthcoming from a hotel corporation.
I could see the train station if that is something that is planned to be built anyway. I don't think creating a need for something just to save the dome is responsible. I have no idea though of the needs of metro. I think a park would be really great if surrounded by the skeleton of the dome.
The problem with doing a transportation hub at the Astrodome is that you would have to tunnel under Reliant Stadium or Reliant Center to do it. That alone would probably make such a reuse prohibitive.
In terms of material it is cheaper to reuse but because of other conditions might make reuse of another structure more expensive than building from scratch. In my experience renovations, especially to a different use, have taken longer than building than scratch. That isn't always the case and some projects have been more cost effective to reuse. There are other issues though than just the cost which might be playing a factor in why a hotel proposal hasn't been put forward. I don't know enough about the history of the proposals to know why there hasn't been a serious hotel proposal but given the proximity to Reliant Center and Stadium this seems like a no brainer to me. As I said my own feeling is that a hotel alone might not be enough a revenue generator which is why I'm also including parking, commercial and other space in my proposal. The Texans and Livestock Show and Rodeo want more parking and my proposal is giving them more than if you just tore down the Dome and made it surface parking. A hotel will provide rooms for conventions and visitors to Reliant Stadium and the other stuff will provide a draw when the rest of the complex isn't used.
The easiest idea is to strip down to the roof and the columns, fill in the hole with fill from someones retention pond, pave it over and use it for an open air exhibition space. There could be a lot of uses: farmer market, rodeo pins, tailgate set up, music festivals, OTC exhibits, pits for the Grand Prix etc, and you could use it for VIP parking for big rodeo donors.
The hole is huge and estimates say it will cost millions just to fill it in. The hole is almost 400,000 square feet and is about 20' deep so that would require 8 million cubic feet of material to fill. Filling a hole that large also isn't a matter of just dumping dirt in. Given the water table and soil conditions in Houston it needs to be compacted and properly drained otherwise in the next rain it will turn into a 400,000 square foot sinkhole. Besides filling in the hole to strip it down to the structure it will still likely cost a few million to take down all of the cladding and roofing material to get to the structure. Also just exposing the structure presents it's own issues since in the Gulf climate exposed steel won't last long and has to be thoroughly weather protected. The most cost effective proposal I think was the convention center proposal which largely preserves most of the building without adding a lot. My own proposal wouldn't be as cost effective as that but I am looking as a potential revenue generator that takes advantage of the large enclosed space of the dome including the subsurface area.
It is that simple. The hole is already lined with concrete so it doesn't react with the water table, Houston's soil is generally a very fine grained clay that compacts very easily, you just drive a roller around on it while it fills, you're going to cap it over with reinforced concrete anyway so all the soil really has to do is fill the space, every development in the greater Houston area is required to retain their rainwater, my rough calculation (30 acres x 20' depth x 1613.3 cu yd/ac ft) says it will take 1 million cubic yards, that's about the average for drainage and retention for one subdivision in Pearland, though it is 35,000 dump truck loads. You could put 200 basketball courts in it for the world's biggest street ball tournament.
Perhaps simple in concept but if you've worked construction you should know that that large a fill isn't simple in execution. Further without knowing the engineering of the bowl it may not be able to just handle being filled with material. Consider that the weight of one cubic yard of dirt is around 100 lbs so we are adding 100 million lbs of weight, not including the reinforced slab and live load, to the bowl which most likely wasn't designed to contain it. Anyway the cost and difficulty of filling in the hole that would be left of the dome isn't just my opinion but engineers looking at it estimate the cost to be $20 million. http://blog.chron.com/houstonpoliti...ome-be-demolished-and-how-much-would-it-cost/
Just to add looking at the numbers if we accept the $28 to $30 million (I have my doubts about it) figure complete demolition might be the most cost effective measure. I am going to back track and say that filling in and preserving the structure might also be costs effective too but in both cases we are still talking about tens of millions which I haven't heard a plan to pay for those either. My own view is that the existing dome building presents a great opportunity as a large enclosed space that can be reused to meet a variety of uses that can also potentially generate more revenue than just filling the hole and using the ground level of the dome.
We are absolutely going to need a corporate Sugar Daddy. (and the concrete bowl doesn't need to structurally carry the soil load, it just transfers it to the subsoil, it wouldn't matter if it cracks or buckles some since you'd have 20' of fill over it. And from what I've read the Dome was massively over-engineered) You know, if you kept it as an open air covered space, I'm not sure you would even need to fill the hole. I'm sure it already has drainage pumps.
It's too bad that it's built where it is. If only the med center would have reached past 610 by now that would be viable but as of today the dome's location will not attract realistic consumers on a regular basis. Besides of Reliant Stadium that entire area just doesn't generate revenue. Hell, it would probably serve better as a commercial warehouse or medical center storage facility than a mall or hotel. Toyota Center in 20 years would be better suited for what your suggesting.
Like I said I haven't seen the engineering drawings but you still wouldn't want the bowl cracking and buckling as that no longer isolate it from ground water. Anyone in Houston who has a cracked foundation knows how much of a pain that can be. Even if the dome is over engineered it will still cost millions to fill the hole. You could turn it into the World's largest Skatepark. That is my thinking too why in my proposal I have parking, hotel, and space that can be used for convention.
Convention Centers and stadiums like to have hotel space near by to attract visitors and those two uses feed off of each other. The retail / commercial space doesn't need to carry the project just provide a draw for when those other spaces aren't being used.
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=9352939 HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Parts of the iconic Houston Astrodome will be no more Sunday -- if the weather cooperates, at least. Three large ramp towers on the outside of the dome are scheduled to be demolished with explosives Sunday night between 9:30 and 10pm. The Texas Department of Transportation announced there will be a total closure of the South Loop right by the Astrodome at the time of the demolition. When the towers are coming down, both eastbound and westbound traffic on the South Loop will be brought to a halt as a precaution. TxDOT says the closure will only last about 10 minutes.
This is the beginning of the end of the Astrodome. They will slowly demolish it until it is no more. The local politicians know this is the best way to tear down the Astrodome, no public outcry if its done a little at a time. We wont be having any cool implosions of the Astrodome
