Goodbye, Astrodome: Texans Reject a Plan to Save the Structure

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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What was once the technological marvel of its age, the Houston Astrodome is now all but doomed to become a pile of scrap if further efforts to save the iconic structure fail again. Is it best to preserve the history or let it go and move on into the future?

The Astrodome is the most extreme example of a conundrum facing many American cities: What the heck do we do with gargantuan sports stadiums that aren’t all that old, but can no longer be used?
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Meh. It is a sport venue...not a place that made world peace happen
 
Welcome to the world of short sighted decision making perfected in the 70's. It was decisions made to save a few dollars and for some attention getting that caused this structure to be a useless hulk and if when the big money was spent someone cared about the future, some use would have been found for it.
 
With a name like Astrodome and Houston, I thought it was something NASA related. But this is for a sports dome? Who cares, torch the place.
 
This is what I say to my italian friends all the time: tear down the Coliseum. It's almost 2000 years old, and it's taking up valuable parking space.

Seriously, there's not a big difference between raising the joint and turning it into a park and keeping the structure. Nobody thinks a 50 year old building matters, but this was the first of it's kinda and a park is certainly better than another parking lot.

JPM, what exactly did they do in the 70s that made the Astrodome a useless hulk? I know it was built in the 60's, but beyond that I don't know what was done to it (or not done to it) in the 70s.
 
Meh, outside of people local to the stadium it's just another large sports venue that is an eye sore. After watching Tiger Stadium get razed (which was as old as Fenway) after multiple attempts to save a historic ball park, I figured that it's just a building. This one isn't even that old and doesn't really have anything special to it, so lets whip out the dynamite and start the implosion!
 
Tear it down. Texas Stadium was just as iconic and it was easily dispatched.
 
Texas Stadium wasn't the first domed stadium. The only thing iconic about it was it was the unfinished roof.
 
Godmachine said:
Seriously. Over blown article much?

Must be boring these days , trying to make news stories out of shit like this.
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People get nostalgic over silly things.

But seriously though. We in the USA have a fetish for these sporting arenas and it is only getting worse not better. As a contractor, one facility I work at (brand new sport venue) was awarded a national award....which is hilarious given that ALL the concrete in the building was poured wrong (a concrete walkway collapsed because of it, the floor isn't even flat, the loading docks are fucked up), HALF of the roof erector set was never installed as a cost cutting measure-resulting in a roof that no one has an actual load-limit rating for. Which given the double-duty of the facility as also being a band show house is a massive disaster waiting to happen...I could go on a great deal about the space....


But like I said. We Americans have a problem. And we keep building these places at a cost of hundreds of millions of USD wasted every year. Just last week a Texas HIGH SCHOOL district was voting on whether to spend $70 million USD to build a new football stadium.
 
Skripka said:
People get nostalgic over silly things.

But seriously though. We in the USA have a fetish for these sporting arenas and it is only getting worse not better. As a contractor, one facility I work at (brand new sport venue) was awarded a national award....which is hilarious given that ALL the concrete in the building was poured wrong (a concrete walkway collapsed because of it, the floor isn't even flat, the loading docks are fucked up), HALF of the roof erector set was never installed as a cost cutting measure-resulting in a roof that no one has an actual load-limit rating for. Which given the double-duty of the facility as also being a band show house is a massive disaster waiting to happen...I could go on a great deal about the space....


But like I said. We Americans have a problem. And we keep building these places at a cost of hundreds of millions of USD wasted every year. Just last week a Texas HIGH SCHOOL district was voting on whether to spend $70 million USD to build a new football stadium.
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I think what I really take away from what you said is that TEXAS has a serious fetish with building these absurdly expensive sporting venues.
 
Godmachine said:
I think what I really take away from what you said is that TEXAS has a serious fetish with building these absurdly expensive sporting venues.
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They're going up everywhere, hoss. Or existing ones are getting 10s-100s of millions spent on expanding/renovating them. This thing in Houston might have been a nice convention center...But I know nothing of Houston's existing facilities for such. In the last decade alone (not counting 2013), and only counting Baseball/NCAA football/NFL football, there have been over 40 of the new eyesores built nationwide. That leaves out all the basketball courts and multipurpurpose arenas built.

It ain't just texas that is nuts for the eyesores.
 
Skripka said:
They're going up everywhere, hoss. Or existing ones are getting 10s-100s of millions spent on expanding/renovating them. This thing in Houston might have been a nice convention center...But I know nothing of Houston's existing facilities for such. In the last decade alone (not counting 2013), and only counting Baseball/NCAA football/NFL football, there have been over 40 of the new eyesores built nationwide. That leaves out all the basketball courts and multipurpurpose arenas built.

It ain't just texas that is nuts for the eyesores.
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We are such a wasteful society.
 
nilepez said:
Texas Stadium wasn't the first domed stadium. The only thing iconic about it was it was the unfinished roof.
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It's not that it was unfinished; it was done that way on purpose. That aside, it's still was an iconic stadium that just needed to be torn down. Now, I have never been through Reliant park, but where Texas Stadium sat was prime real estate, so it made complete sense to tear it down.
 
Skripka said:
They're going up everywhere, hoss. Or existing ones are getting 10s-100s of millions spent on expanding/renovating them. This thing in Houston might have been a nice convention center...But I know nothing of Houston's existing facilities for such. In the last decade alone (not counting 2013), and only counting Baseball/NCAA football/NFL football, there have been over 40 of the new eyesores built nationwide. That leaves out all the basketball courts and multipurpurpose arenas built.

It ain't just texas that is nuts for the eyesores.
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The US has an obsession with athletes and turning them into targets of hero worshipping. Actors and actresses as well.
 
nilepez said:
This is what I say to my italian friends all the time: tear down the Coliseum. It's almost 2000 years old, and it's taking up valuable parking space.
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Great idea, if you wanted to put a dent in Italy's tourism industry.

Agree with you on the Astrodome, though. If it's not being used, what's the point of keeping it? Waste of space.
 
nilepez said:
JPM, what exactly did they do in the 70s that made the Astrodome a useless hulk? I know it was built in the 60's, but beyond that I don't know what was done to it (or not done to it) in the 70s.
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When I was a kid they were building the Silverdome and kept comparing it to the astrodome so much I assumed it built around the same time.
 
Didn't bother to read article.

According to Wikipedia :

On November 5, 2013, voters in Houston turned down a $213 million dollar referendum to renovate the Astrodome
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The cost of demolition could be in excess of $70 million dollars.
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LOL... Perhaps it was better to renovate the thing.
 
nilepez said:
Texas Stadium wasn't the first domed stadium. The only thing iconic about it was it was the unfinished roof.
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Football should be played outdoors. Ushering in the dome era is reason enough to tear the thing down.
 
drako said:
Football should be played outdoors. Ushering in the dome era is reason enough to tear the thing down.
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Said no one in Houston ever when its hot and humid as hell outside... like most of the year.
 
Ducman69 said:
Said no one in Houston ever when its hot and humid as hell outside... like most of the year.
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I gotta laugh when I hear people up north complain about the cold, and then as soon as they move south they spend billions of dollars ensuring they're never away from air conditioning.
 
Meh, I'm sorry a building from 1965 is hardly a "historic building". The locals are free to do what they want with their tax dollars and they spoke. Hopefully they get something good out of it. Here in San Francisco after the 49ers leave there's a lot of talk of turning the entire area into house... *sigh* I hate whenever I hear that "it'll be turned into house" hey here's a really large open area right next to the bay, why not turn it into some open area park, or hell a shopping center or something useful for everyone. Housing benefits exactly 1 entity, the housing contractor that bribed his way into getting the job to build a bunch of houses.
 
Skripka said:
Meh. It is a sport venue...not a place that made world peace happen
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I wish that more people would think this way about many things, not all, but many. We sink vast amounts of money and resources into saving a lot of crap that really isn't as important as some make them out to be that could be put to better use improving the lives of many, and possibly go a long way towards solving some issues in the world. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about real important things such as historical landmarks, etc., but more about things that are "perceived" (for lack of a better word) as important, but really aren't. It's hard to really put into words what I mean, but I'm sure it's not really that hard to grasp the concept.

In many ways we have a bad habit of looking at the past instead of looking towards the future. Sure the past is important, but isn't the future even more important?
 
I am from the Houston area and I say fuck it tear it down, should have been done long ago in fact.

I still remember when they tore down Six Flags Astroworld back in 2005 with the intent of developing something on the land as it would generate more "revenue" for the city with the theme park being gone....it still is a big ass lot of nothing to this day.
 
Renegade_Azzy said:
Here's my question, why the hell cant it be used? It was perfectly usable for how many decades.
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It is falling apart: http://www.houstonpress.com/slideshow/8th-wonder-a-tour-of-houstons-rotting-astrodome-36498114/ ...and further it is way out of building code.

Because of code problems, as well as there being more modern facilities built to replace it, there have been no major tenants wanting to use the facility and pay bills for it in almost a decade. The last hope for anyone to want to use it was the 2012 Olympics which ofc went to London instead.

Difficult to "use" a building when no one wants to occupy is and pay to make is usable again.
 
A prison.

You could recoup the costs by having Gladiator fights and wild beasts devouring death row inmates. Reality TV at it's finest.
 
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