I agree that it needs to be torn down at this point. The nostalgia fades every year and fewer people exist who watched the Oilers and Astros there. There's no appetite to spend the money required to repurpose it so it's an albatross. The McNairs would obviously love to tear it down and build the kind of entertainment district that every owner covets (even though I don't think NRG Park is suitable for that kind of thing). Maybe the county could just hold onto the land for when the Texans inevitably demand a new stadium.
Cost. There's still A LOT of asbestos and other cancer causing agents in the construction materials that have to be dealt with before they can blow it up or do anything with it at all. My brother is in the environmental industry and his company does cleanups (on an much much smaller scale). He told me years ago that it could be 9 figures for the entire process of cleaning it up, knocking it down, and then cleaning it up.
The dome could've been made into something special. There were several different plans out there for its use and the McNair's shot down any and all plans. For this reason I hope it stands as long as the McNair's own the team. Or they can pull the money out of their own pockets and pay to have it torn down.
I remember back in the 90's when Larry Walker (Colorado Rockies) said it was his most hated ballpark because everything smelled like cat piss (he was probably not wrong). So we proceeded to call him Cat Piss from the stands every time they were in town. LF was Donk Bichette (ie: the Donut Truck), RF was CatPiss. Glorious Days.
Any new facility will have to collaborate with the Rodeo folks. Unless the football team wants to build its own stadium in the suburbs somewhere…
Fifteen years ago Ed Emmitt said it would cost $30 mil to tear down but $3 mil a year to upkeep. If they would've torn it down fifteenth years ago they would've saved $15 mil and spared tax payers the buffoonery of paying $45 mil to upkeep a building that serves no purpose. Sell whatever of value that's left (seats, signs, etc) and have an Astrosworld lot watch party of the demolition
I thought they already sold off all of the seats and other stuff a few years back. I don't disagree with you. The longer they wait, the more expensive it becomes to deal with. I love my memories of the place, too, but figure it out and blow the f***er up already.
I actually think most people who went to games there (myself included) would like to see it put out of its misery. There is zero nostalgia value for the outer shell. There is nostalgia for some of the “firsts” that made it truly unique (the scoreboard, the quirky luxury suites, the lounge/bar areas)… but those all basically went away with renovations over the years while it was still in use. Any venture/project would require an almost total tear-down/abatement anyways of everything but the outer shell…. And as has been said many many times over, if there was a SLAM DUNK venture that made sense, it would have already happened by now. There is a middle ground between preserving history… and letting things rot to the ground (and yet somehow still paying $3 million a year to do so). Houston doesn’t have a clue on what to do. Same goes for the Astroworld lot. It’s just not a great part of town that any investor is going to be serious about. The ‘most likely’ investors to actually build something in that space/area are the current tenants of the land itself. Let them figure it out and supplement the cost.
The thing do was make it something awesome for rodeo and monster jam etc.. I feel like maybe the mcnairs got greedy and wanted everything at NRG? Or maybe it was too much to make that happen money wise? No idea.. but that time has passed. It’s over, make it parking for all I care. I’m more upset they let it get like this.
That still would have been a huge waste of money to have two stadiums…. One just for football/concerts and another for everything else. Theres also an element that the absbestos/abatement issues would have eventually come to a head and the building at some point would have always been unusable without major gutting/renovations. Which makes every claim that it needs to be “re-purposed” just hollow in every sense of the word. I highly doubt the AC units, electrical conduits, gas lines, and plumbing is even close to being up to modern-day code. Fire suppression? Air quality? Foundation status? These are things that will go bad in every old building. McLane was complaining about these things the second he bought the team. That was 30+ years ago. Newer buildings do a better job of that… MMP being 20+ years old is a far cry of when the Astrodome was 20+ years old and was already needing/undergoing major renovations.
The Astrodome was the first enclosed stadium, it was billed as the 8th wonder of the world. I venture folks will keep it and eventually get Houstonians to flip the bill to transform it into a valuable asset once again. heck, it could be made into a parking garage, and everyone would be ecstatic!!!
I think people get sticker shock when they see how expensive its going to be to turn it into 'anything' At one point there was a first high-rise... or a first air conditioned office building... or a first central air home... or a first retractable roof place... or a first translucent roof place. It got its mark as being "first"... but that also doesn't mean the structure has to stand forever. It will never be a stadium again, and that's the only thing it was ever first at.
Larry Walker is actually a really nice guy. After the Natioal Anthem he'd walk over to left field and sign autographs Dante Bichette was an *******
