With Houston losing its Olympic bid, I really hope it doesn't mean the end of the Astrodome. The wrecking ball would be a sad end to a grand building. True, historic venues go away (eg: that parquet eyesore in Boston , but I'm sure many of us think of the Dome as something special, and an integral part of many of our lives...
I think the issue with the Dome is the maintenance costs required to keep the place up. Without the building generating any type of meaningful revenue, this can't go on unless an alternative use for the structure is found. There have been a lot of creative ideas bounced around for it, everything from a huge shopping mall, to a condominium community, to a massive convention center. We must preserve the Dome.
I posted this in the other olympic bid thread but i'll repeat it here... You sure could park a lot of cars in that dome if you built a couple entrances and a multi level parking garage inside.
I'm all for preserving history but its just too close to Reliant Stadium. As the Super Bowl approaches, that land becomes more valuable. The parking garage idea is nice, but wouldn't it cost more than just bulldozing the place down and paving it over? It would be sad if killing the Astrodome solved our traffic congestion/parking problems
Whenever I drop by Houston, I always take 59 part of the way home. I noticed the purrrty overpass bridges they've added and the widening of the freeway around the S. Shepherd area. Were these changes in preparation for a potential Olympics or were they approved because people/the city wanted them?
"Originally posted by North Star I say build a hockey arena inside the Dome to attract an NHL team." But couldn't we just use the new Rockets arena if we wanted to attract an NHL team?
Yeah, if Les Alexander owned the NHL team. Otherwise, no. An NHL team owned by someone else, playing at the new arena would not get all of the game day revenue. The Rockets would get most of it.
