Astrodome to Learn Future Shortly

as reported by the Houston Chronicle (www.chron.com)

Harris County officials plan next week to unveil three scenarios for the Astrodome — ranging from demolition to a multi-purpose redesign that could accommodate a planetarium, a movie soundstage and other attractions — and a revised master plan for Reliant Park that could include a new arena and hotel.

Willie Loston, executive director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation, which operates the county-owned Reliant Park complex, said price tags for the Astrodome could range from $100 million to demolish the Dome and replace it with green space to $500 million for a full-fledged, bells-and-whistles revamped Dome, financed in part with non-public money, that could offer entertainment and technology options for tenants.

“We're not making recommendations, we're not making proposals,” Loston said. “We're saying that one of these three things could happen to the (Astrodome) building.”

The master plan for Reliant Park will include demolition of Reliant Arena, which would be replaced by a new arena attached to Reliant Center on the north end of the Reliant Park and augmented, if development partners can be lined up, with a hotel and parking garage attached to Reliant Center.

The master plan, and the three options for the Astrodome, would be in keeping with Harris County Judge Ed Emmett's charge that the county should adopt a plan for the Astrodome's future by the end of the year. How that plan would be put into action, however, is still undetermined.

“What I can tell you is that it is an almost unanimous feeling among the commissioners' court that this need to be a public decision,” Loston said.

If the Dome is demolished, it would be replaced by a park-like setting rather than parking spaces, Loston said. And demolition, he said, would be more complicated than it was for Texas Stadium in Irving, the Dallas Cowboys' former stadium, which was ringed by three freeways with no other buildings nearby.

“This (the Astrodome) is in the middle of an operating complex,” Loston said. “I've got football games I'm getting ready for (at Reliant Stadium) in two months.”

The other options start with the same premise: The Dome's outer shell would remain standing, but the interior would be gutted, removing seats, concourses and skyboxes, and a 300,000- to 400,000-square-foot floor would be installed at street level above the current Dome floor, which is 32 feet below street level.

“When you walked into the Dome, you would walk right onto this new floor surface,” Loston said. “We would be getting rid of the hole in the ground and rehabbing the building.”

Potential uses in a basic reconfiguration could include a planetarium and a institute for science, technology, education and mathematics, established through non-public funding. With portable seats, the Dome also could accommodate sports events, indoor festivals or events in conjunction with the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

The third option — “the second option on steroids,” as Loston described it — would include space for meeting rooms, conference rooms and laboratories, built on what are now the Dome's fifth and seventh levels, plus a collection of museums and a movie soundstage.

Loston said the Sport and Convention Corporation will not recommend to county commissioners which plan, if any, to approve.

“We don't prefer anything,” he said. “We are stewards who are trying to give decision-makers a range of options.”

The proposal to demolish the dilapidated Reliant Arena, which in recent years has housed rodeo events, the last season of the Houston Comets WNBA team and the USA Gymnastics national championships, came as county officials discussed the master plan for the entire park area, not just the Dome.

“The master plan will include a plan to add space to Reliant Center to replace what was lost (with the arena's demolition),” Loston said.

That could include a new arena attached to Reliant Center along with a parking garage and a hotel tower, located on the Fannin Street side of the complex, to accommodate conventions and other events at the center.