San Antonio’s Lake Flato Architects and Houston’s Studio Red have completed what they’re calling a schematic design for the new 59,000-sq.-ft. Midtown arts center planned for the full city block at 3400 Main St., adjacent to the Ensemble/HCC light-rail stop. And that means: Yes, presentations to the board of the Independent Arts Collaborative, but also the follow-on posting of the design on the organization’s Facebook page — to see what further reactions come in. The latest plans elaborate on the design team’s concept of separate spaces connected by an open-air central breezeway (the tall structure at right in the above image, viewed from the corner of Main and Holman), but make clear that the theaters are the project’s focus.
It’s not that county officials weren’t looking for some big new thing to do with it, argues Cynthia Neeley. The big problem was they stopped taking care of it while they waited for the sports stadium’s grand new future to arrive: “Let’s add up just a few things: $18.8 million for the lease buy-out, $517,000 for repairs to qualify for temporary occupancy for the Rodeo, $3,210 for that final inspection and permit, $50,000 for a workshop to study future use of the Astrodome, $50,000 more for consultants to study the workshop study; grand total is $19,420,210. . . . Does it bother anyone else that . . . the Sports & Convention Corporation spent that whopping amount and we still have a building doing nothing? And that millions upon millions of potential revenue have been lost? And that whatever grand plan is in its future is going to cost us millions more? In 2007, the year before Astrodome was closed, there were only seven events in the building for a paltry annual net income of $103,596. Did anybody see ads that the Dome was available for lease for private parties or events? Were there promotions or incentives publicized? 
Lisa Gray finds echoes, art, and a few dramatic rays of light in the giant abandoned 1927 underground reservoir near the Buffalo Bayou at Sabine St., under the planned site of a new outdoor performance pavilion: “The question now, of course, is what to do with the Cistern. [Buffalo Bayou Partnership’s Guy] Hagstette says that 
