Conflicting messages with this new (silly) idea. The structure means too much to the city to tear down......so let's make it into a parking garage instead.
Holy **** you couldn't have written a more stereotypical "houston" outcome. Some obviously disagree but IMO there were some very valid ideas thrown out, many of which seemed more than feasible. To simply turn it into a parking garage is a damn shame. For as often as we collectively pat ourselves on the back for being such a "can do" city we sure know how to drop the ball.
If Emmett and the blue hairs are going to force us to keep the structure, might as well make a garage. About the only thing that maintains that structure that would be even remotely useful, let alone feasible.
A.)Because it makes it literally a sad shell of what it once was.... and b.) Its still going to erode and perpetually need constant maintenance... it will look even worse 20 years from now than it does now. What then? Any sort of repurposement, parking garage included, has a finite shelf-life. There is simply no concrete idea that immortalizes the dome/structure in all its glory because there has never been a sports stadium purposely kept on life support/alive well past its usefulness.
I'm not saying I like the idea, I'm just saying it is the best idea that involves keeping the dome actually upright. Other than just letting it rot, which is better still.
I, for one, have no interest in paying a ton of money to keeping the dome upright... unless they somehow turn it into a re-incarnation of the world's greatest indoor sports venue (and have teams that are ready and willing to play there). I thought it would have been a decent venue for the Dynamo... or somehow be retrofitted to entice an NHL team. It will never be anything else of use... not a convention center, not a museum, not a movie theater, not a indoor ski mountain. It was built as a sports venue... and it should die as a sports venue, given that there is still no consensus on what it should be, a good 15+ years since it was last in use.
As a Houston native, as someone who loved his boyhood trips to see the Astros there, I am loving the parking lot idea. What a great use of an immense, air-conditioned volume. LOL. And just like the best parking lots, it will have a restricted number of exits when all the cars want to leave. Too funny.
Import a couple thousand Bangladeshis and let them go to work. If those guys can take down cargo ships, they can take down the 'Dome.
I guess it is representative the of the Houston mindset. Need more roads. Need more parking lots. Need more strip malls.
You should read the article about the idea you love and facility you will never use. It won't have AC.
we started with a fully modernized hotel and convention center which was voted down. then we went to a park with only the outer structure kept in-tact with a mini-me version of the dome courtesy of the rodeo and texans. we've also had 3rd party proposals mixed in that strip down the dome to is structure and incorporating beautiful parks, event space, etc... all wonderful in their own right. but no..., now we're down to only a parking lot. went downhill so fast that at this point just please tear it down.
Oh but the cost to tear it down is so much, we should find a way to keep it around and around and around and around we go in a Ouroboros like circle....
Or further down the line we will have come to a full circle and decide to make it into a baseball stadium.
This. You'll see this more and more as time goes on. I went to see couple Oilers games there and a few astros games but they moved to Enron Field when I was 14 so there isn't a ton I can draw upon before that. The number 1 takeaway I had when I went to the 1st ever game at Enron (Yankees) was how much better an experience a real ballpark was than watching games at the dome. How many people younger than me (30) do you think have a big attachment to the dome? Did they ever release age demographics for the last dome vote? I don't need to have had the dome as a part of my childhood to understand the historical context. However, it ushered in what is seen by many as the dark ages of sports stadiums that prioritized multi-use stadiums that brought many cities indoors which baseball was never meant to be. It was an absolute must for Houston and many other cities in the 60s, 70s and 80s but the ballpark at Camden Yards showed us how important it is to have a baseball specific stadium and how much better the experience is. So yea it was the first giant multi-use dome stadium but there is a reason why people don't keep making better versions of those anymore. The same goes with football stadiums. Demolishing multi-use domes and the cookie cutter circle multi use stadiums in Cincy, Philly, St Louis etc was the renaissance of aesthetic engineering on such massive structures with very emotional connections to sport and communities. Nothing epitomizes that more than the Mets modeling their ballpark after the old Ebbets Field. I say this as a kid who was OBSESSED with stadiums old, current and new and practically memorized this site: http://www.ballparks.com
I have lots of great memories from the Dome, but the only way to relive them would be if they started playing baseball games in there again. Just walking around (or parking!?) in the shell ain't going to do anything for me. Bite the bullet and raze it.
I thought keeping the outer steel structure of the Dome and creating a nice outdoor space next to the NRG complex was a good idea.
