Astro-doomed?

Can the 8th Wonder of the World make a come-back?

Yesterday Harris County voters rejected a bond proposal that would have turned the now-defunct “8th Wonder of the World” into an exhibition hall. Essentially we were voting to “save the Dome.” But we didn’t, and now the Dome may be doomed.

It’s interesting how the situation played out over the past few months. First, Harris County citizens were told that the Dome cost millions of dollars per month just to keep it from being condemned by the city. Then they said that demolishing the stadium would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, which we obviously did not have on hand at the moment.

So the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. set out to elicit some ideas of what to do with the Dome. Could we save it? Could we make money off of it? Is it still relevant? The Sports and Convention Corp actually held a contest in which they solicited ideas about what the Dome should be. Ostensibly, the best idea was supposed to win the contest, and that’s what they would do with the Astrodome. Except that’s not what happened. The HCSCC instead decided to do its own thing and put the measure on a ballot.

In my own opinion, it looks like the HCSCC merely issued the request for proposals in order to save face among a nostalgic and expectant public. In their minds, however, they knew that there would be no selection from among the public’s ideas; HCSCC would have its cake and eat it too.

But that all depended on the ballot measure passing yesterday. Which—to many peoples’ surprise—failed by a healthy margin. So now the prevailing talking point is that the Astrodome might be Astro-doomed to destruction. However, I think there is a silver lining that we may be overlooking: the imminent failure and demolition of the Dome may drive down the purchase price for any potential investor/developer looking to turn the Dome into the magical place it could be (and without raising taxes to do so). I think it’s the best of both worlds. The HCSCC will have a strong incentive to cut a big discount for any developer wishing to buy the Astrodome (or face demolition and associated fees), and the whole process is given to private industry where it belongs. Win/win/win (the Dome stays alive). Imagine the possibilities.

In the end, the HCSCC will reap what it sowed. They held a “contest” for innovative ideas on what the Dome could be, but none of them were “acceptable.” And then they put all their eggs in one basket—passing $217 million bond package to renovate the Dome into an exhibition hall. To put it bluntly, that plan backfired. Big time. But HCSCC could mitigate the loss by passing the Dome on to an innovative and interested developer. I’d like to see what we could come up with without all the bureaucratic red tape—or at least less of it.

I don’t want to see the Astrodome become a pile of steel and rubble. But I balk at saddling taxpayers with this kind of obligation after the way HCSCC handled the situation.

Astrodome’s time likely up after voters reject plan to convert stadium into convention hall — The Washington Post.