The Pecan Park Eagle

Halloween, 2013: Even here, one can see Reliant Stadium crowding the Astrodome partially out of sight. Any new design for a re-purposed Dome leaves Reliant out of the picture, of course, but it never will be out of any new reality because it was almost built on top of the Dome.

Houston Astros icon Larry Dierker made a point in his Chronicle column last weekend about the dubious future of the Astrodome that really rang home with me. Dierker called attention to the fact that building Reliant Stadium so close to the Astrodome structure may be the leading point that both blocks new vision for the elder landmark, the proud dome that once sat alone in grandeur on the concrete prairie, while also helping to maintain resistance from the Texans and Rodeo people from even wanting new life for a past that sits right in their own front or back yards, depending on one’s point of view.

Dierker flatly asked: “Why did they have to build Reliant Stadium so physically close to the Astrodome in the first place?” 

Why, indeed? If there was even a basic plan in place back then to preserve and re-purpose the Dome, there was plenty of room on that acreage to do a physical separation of the two buildings that would have left both Reliant and the Dome unspoiled by territorial competition with each other today.

My guess is that the builders fully expected the Astrodome structure to be gone by now. So, where they located Reliant Stadium relative to an implicitly abandoned and condemned building was never even an after-thought. It was never a thought at all – and I mean right up to the last Super Bowl site campaign when some of the same people from the Reliant tenants group suggested again that this would be a good time to raze the Astrodome and create a few more parking spaces for Super Bowl guests.

Unfortunately, the visionary preservationists resistance to the destruction of the Astrodome only arose after the ravages of time have weakened the case for saving our world-treasured example of original architectural design – and the fight has come about so far beyond the time that the original construction of Reliant Stadium so close to it made the battle today one that travels up a much steeper hill to any chance of winning.

Thank you, Mr. Dierker, for bringing up the location problem in the preservation battle. One of the Astrodome’s previous strengths was its lone presence  grandeur on the plains of Southeast Texas. That illusion can never be recaptured today without Photoshop.