The Pecan Park Eagle

The Astrodome, Looking South from the Reliant Stadium Parking Lot in 2002.

What are we going to do with the Astrodome?

Are we going to make an active decision about the future of grand old lady of all American sports venue innovations – or are we simply going to continue using it as  a basis for periodic nostalgia stories by the local media on what it used to mean to the Houston sporting community as it also continues to fall apart, beam by riveted beam, at the taxpayer’s expense?

This two-month span alone, March and April 2012, we’ve again had stories by both Channels 11 and 2 on the conditions of the Dome’s interior that also have  swept quickly over the absence of a clear plan for the structure’s future and the high costs of either keeping it stagnant, as is, or tearing it down. If the pattern of the past continues, we will continue to avoid an active decision and simply wait until some other news outlet or under-financed planning group steps forward to raise the “astrodome” name to consciousness again, sometime in the next two years.

It’s time for that to change, but talk is cheap. People like me don’t have the money to make anything happen on this scale, but there are a number of individuals, groups, and corporate concerns in this town who could make it happen to the good, if these interests could all agree upon and come to terms with how the building could be used in service to some commercial end that also satisfied its need for preservation as one of the most important architectural buildings in the world.

The Astrodome remains as the landmark fulfillment of a change in multi-purpose stadium construction that was the first to protect even sports like baseball and football from weather extremes. Before the Houston dome, there were no facilities out there big enough for indoor baseball or football. After the Astrodome, many would continue to follow.

Do we really want to let this landmark either continue its path to see – or simply put it on the execution block as nothing more than the latest Houston building to be torn down for additional parking space?

The idea that we may do the latter makes me ashamed of Houston – and that’s not a feeling I bear easily when I hear it coming toward our city from outsiders, Isn’t there anyone out there with both the will and the resource access who might be willing to step forward and take leadership on a “Put the Heart Back in the Astrodome” campaign?”

To me, buildings are like bodies. They only remain alive, for better or worse, when the stir of human hearts and souls are beating within them. Once the people leave, they begin to fall apart, slowly but surely. And the Astrodome essentially went dark after the Astros abandoned her after the 1999 baseball season.

I like the idea of a commerce and cultural center that would convert the Astrodome into a place that housed retail, entertainment, and dining businesses – along with separate historical museums on Houston Sports, Commerce, Energy, Education, Medicine, Houston Arts and Museums, NASA, and the Ship Channel. Maybe the Greater Houston Partnership could even move their base of operations there and help work to keep the Dome growing as the most dynamic salesman that Houston ever had.

The good possibilities from an even more finely tuned model of my humble prototype are endless. But they just won’t start without human will, devotion, heart, money, and energy being infused into them.

Please leave a comment on what you think we should do about the Astrodome, and, if you also are the person or group that is willing to take a leadership role in making something constructive happen, please feel free to make a public commitment here too at The Pecan Park Eagle.

PM Addendum Here’s asuggestion submitted later in the day of this posting by architectural artist Patrick Lopez that comes complete with two photos of the Astrodome’s skeletal structure:

Patricks Lopez Says: “First let’s keep the Astrodome , strip it to the structure , cover it in glass to become a giant greenhouse for 21st century science,

“The Future Astrodome Nature and Ecology Center, a glass dome study center , an arboretum or our local plants and  a vast aquarium for the study of our local gulf coast aquatic sea life ,and bird life , the gold of the institution, to keep our waters ,birds and fish , air and earth here in Texas , all safe from pollution “

“The all glass building is to become a science center for our local schools and universities, class rooms and lecture halls for continuing study of our nation’s fight against pollution .” – Patrick Lopez

“A Teaching center ,of environmental study  where people from all over the world would visit here to find answers about the latest technology in pollution elimination , Clean air , clean water , a clean earth , all studied  here at Houston’s World Nature Center”