FINALLY!! MMP's roof to be cleaned!

Seriously folks... no more looking at the grunge and grime on a barely 4 year old Stadium.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2265777

Minute Maid roof to be spruced up for Super Bowl
By DINA CAPPIELLO

Add Minute Maid Park's moldy roof to the list of things that will be spruced up for Super Bowl XXXVIII.

Ending a half-year stalemate with the Astros and Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, the roof's manufacturer has agreed to remove the mold, which has proliferated into a downtown eyesore, by early next year. The company will then conduct two separate tests to see whether it will apply an acrylic coating or a rubber-like covering to prevent the mold from sprouting again.

Part of the impetus for the solution was that NFL officials housed at the new downtown Hilton Americas hotel could potentially have the mold-covered ballpark as a view, according to Billy Burge, chairman of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority.

"People are going to be looking at all of our major facilities," said Billy Burge, the sports authority's chairman. "It got to this point because the company realized that they have a lot more to gain by making this right, rather than playing hardball."

Oliver Luck, the CEO of the authority, which owns the $250 million ballpark paid for mostly with public funds, said he was satisfied with the agreement. The authority, along with the Houston Astros, which holds a 30-year lease, argued that the growth -- an assortment of common molds found everywhere, including grocery store produce and air -- violated the 10-year warranty. Earlier this year, the team filed a warranty claim with the manufacturer.

"It's exactly what we wanted...to get it cleaned up before the Super Bowl and have a long-term solution," said Luck. The city is also prepping for the big game and polishing its image by planting trees along major routes from airports, camouflaging strip malls with greenery, and encouraging people to clean up city neighborhoods.

Eyes will also be on Minute Maid Park, a stadium built with a $30 million retractable roof of white plastic, designed to reflect sunlight and reduce air conditioning costs, and visible from local highways. The ballpark will host the All Star game in 2004, an event that will also put Houston in the spotlight, said Astros catcher Brad Ausmus.

"Certainly, if I owned the building, I would want it to be clean and presentable over the next eight months for all the world to see," Ausmus said.

Despite the agreement, GenFlex Roofing Systems, of Maumee, Ohio, stands by its claim that mold was not covered by the warranty. The company first offered to pay for a roof cleaning in mid-July, but the Astros wouldn't commit until independent tests were conducted to determine which organisms were growing, and whether their habitation was affecting the roof itself. The tests showed the roof suffered no damage.

"All I can tell you right now, is that we will be cleaning the roof," said Jon Apgar, vice president of marketing and sales for GenFlex. Apgar was the company's president during the bulk of the negotiations. In an interview Tuesday, he said the company -- which has installed numerous so-called thermoplastic membranes on stadiums since they started making them in 1980 -- has never cleaned one before.

In fact, in letters to Astros president Pam Gardner earlier this year, Apgar said all the roof needed was a simple cleaning. Power washing with water, and other simple techniques, have removed mold growing on thin, plastic membranes in the past. On Tuesday, the company was still soliciting bids and did not know exactly how the roof would be washed.

But since the ballpark opened in March 2000, the 480,000 square-foot roof has not seen a hose or detergent, because the Astros, which is responsible for maintenance, assumed that rainfall would clean it.

In the meantime, condensation that collected on the roof because of sweltering temperatures outside and air conditioning inside attracted fungus, according to scientists. Over the last year, the growth has only spread as discussions dragged on.

"My book club was telling me to get up there an clean it," said Pam Gardner, president of the Houston Astros, referring to the delay. "But what we wanted was a permanent fix for it. If it was washed,.we wanted to make sure it didn't grow back."

Studies conducted by the Department of Energy and funded by roofing manufacturers have found mold on similar materials.

Although the moldy growth is not a risk to human health, the roofing industry is concerned because it reduces the reflectiveness of their products, many of which get an energy conservation certification by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.