Dubbed ‘Eighth Wonder of the World,’ the Astrodome now seems likely to face a wrecking ball. When it opened in 1965, it became the first domed sports stadium in the world. It sat mostly unused after October 1999, when the Houston Astros left to occupy Enron Field (now Minute Maid Park), their new baseball stadium. Then, for three weeks in 2005, the Astrodome was used to house thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees from New Orleans.
Since 2008, when city building inspectors declared the Astrodome to be unfit for occupancy, it has been unused and sitting empty in disarray beside the newer Reliant Stadium where the NFL Houston Texans now play. The county still owes several million dollars on the empty hulk and it costs more than $2 million dollars a year just to maintain and insure the structure.
Civic leaders put a measure on Tuesday’s election ballot asking voters to approve a $217 million bond issue to renovate the stadium into a convention and general events center. The Houston Chronicle supported the measure. So did TV station KHOU when on election eve its news anchors emphasized that if voters fail to approve the bond issue they will still have to pay $30 million or more to demolish the structure.
Preservationists were among the leading supporters of the bond measure. But if the measure had passed, the only real beneficiaries of the Astrodome renovation plan would have been some of Houston’s fat cats and not the general public.
Despite there being no organized opposition, voters rejected the measure by a 53 percent majority. They refused to blow another $217 million on the domed stadium which is now a doomed stadium. While I have long wanted to see the Astrodome demolished, I figured the voters would approve the bond proposal. By golly, it looks like Houston voters are not so stupid after all. They got wise to another scheme by the fat cats to feed at the trough of the taxpayers.
1 comment:
It would make a hell of a homeless camp. Won't get rained on and it has showers and toilets.
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