Tag: 77054

Houston History
03/23/12 2:21pm

What I Saw When I Snuck Inside the Astrodome

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Public Buildings, Reliant Park
67 Comments

When was the last time anyone saw the inside of Houston’s hulking, shuttered Astrodome? What’s it like in there, more than a decade since it hosted its final major-league sports event, and more than 5 years since its last bar mitzvah? A curious reader sends Swamplot the latest recon: “I was roaming around taking pictures at the Rodeo on Sunday,” writes the stadium snoop, “when I noticed the ramp down to the floor of the Astrodome was open and there was no one there. I walked down the ramp, on to the field and started taking pictures.”

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Attractions
02/21/12 11:46am

How Harris County Starved the Astrodome

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Quicklink, Reliant Park
17 Comments

HOW HARRIS COUNTY STARVED THE ASTRODOME 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? Did anyone know that you could have rented the field for a bar mitzvah? (Someone actually did, for a reported $15-18,000.)” [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Jeff Balke

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Proposed Developments
10/21/11 11:50pm

The Case for a Ghost Astrodome

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Quicklink, Reliant Park
23 Comments

THE CASE FOR A GHOST ASTRODOME “I’d say let’s be radical! Let’s strip it bare back to its frame and have out-of-towners wonder why it is so. It will minimize maintenance costs while keeping the footprint of the building. Thus, by only making it useless it may be the only way to save it. That way, we’ll buy some time to see how it can truly, purposely be reused AND don’t lose it to circumstantial interests along the way. The ethereal nature of its bare structure will capture everyone’s attention. I imagined that for the people involved in its construction process, the shell in itself wouldn’t mean much, just another day at work, putting together bolts and plates. But to us looking at it 50 years later, facing the prospect of demolition for lack of good options, this shell becomes both haunting and evocative, that memory of a brighter future and at the same time, the challenge of not forgetting.” [Archinect] Photo: Save the Astrodome

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Reliant Park
09/30/11 11:54am

A Guilty Plea from the Man Who Kept the Astrodome Empty

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13 Comments

Real estate developer Michael Surface, who as chairman of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. was in charge of deciding the Astrodome’s future for the first 8 years of its life as an empty sports venue, pled guilty this morning to filing a false tax statement and making a false statement to federal agents. As part of a plea agreement connected to corruption charges filed against him and Harris County commissioner Jerry Eversole, Surface will likely receive a sentence of less than 5 years in prison capped by less than 3 years’ supervised release and a fine of less than $250,000.

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Attractions
08/26/11 4:35pm

Bold New Concept for Astrodome To Emerge from Dallas Consultants Conducting Focus Groups, Interviews with Bigshots

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Public Buildings, Quicklink, Reliant Park
18 Comments

BOLD NEW CONCEPT FOR ASTRODOME TO EMERGE FROM DALLAS CONSULTANTS CONDUCTING FOCUS GROUPS, INTERVIEWS WITH BIGSHOTS A Dallas-area consulting firm known for its consistent recommendation that cities expand their convention space is expected to come up with a plan for what Houston should do with the Astrodome — before the end of the year. Willie Loston, who as executive director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. has spent the last decade mulling over one proposal after another for the vacant facility, tells West U Examiner reporter Mike Reed that whatever the folks from Plano-based Convention Sports and Leisure propose “will resolve one of the thorniest issues involving public expenditures in Harris County.” Best of all: Loston says the new recommendations will somehow emerge from “50 to 75 interviews with education, community and business leaders, before moving on to focus groups.” Why hadn’t someone thought of this sort of approach before? The consultants’ $500,000 fee is being picked up by the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo, Aramark Corp., the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, and Harris County. [Boston.com; West University Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Candace Garcia

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Buffalo Lakes
05/17/11 11:09pm

Comment of the Day: There’s a New Dry Buffalo Lake in My Back Yard

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Comments, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
21 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THERE’S A NEW DRY BUFFALO LAKE IN MY BACK YARD “I just did a google maps search of my place and I noticed the giant lake that they dug out in my ‘backyard’ for this mysterious Buffalo Lakes project. You would never [have] guessed something was going on back there because of the heavily wooded area. No water filled in yet but they cleared out the entire tract. I kept hoping something would develop back there and looks like there is finally some activity. . . .” [Chris, commenting on Gardening from the Sky] Plan: Kirksey Architecture

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Attractions
04/12/11 6:24pm

Comment of the Day: They Could’ve Parked the Space Shuttle Over There by Second Base

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Comments, Quicklink, Reliant Park
12 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THEY COULD’VE PARKED THE SPACE SHUTTLE OVER THERE BY SECOND BASE “Why build a [hangar]? We finally had something to put in the Astrodome and we let it slip away.” [DanaX, commenting on No Shuttle Parking: Space Center Houston’s Innovative Garage Design Loses Out]

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Crime
03/07/11 12:17pm

The Corruption Trials Behind the Astrodome’s Lost Decade

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Development Strategies, Redevelopment, Reliant Park
6 Comments

Any explanation for why a county agency spent 10 years allowing the Astrodome fall into disrepair while haplessly throwing millions of dollars after a sequence of doomed and bizarre plans to redevelop it would have to focus on the thoughtful stewardship of Michael Surface, who presided over the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation from 1999 until his resignation at the end of 2007. Surface’s trial on corruption charges isn’t scheduled to take place until this fall. But jury selection for the trial of his partner in the 5-count federal indictment, Precinct 4 commissioner Jerry Eversole, begins today.

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Attractions
03/04/11 11:03pm

Maybe Once the Astrodome Reopens Charlie Sheen Will Rent It Out Again So He Can Shag a Few More Balls

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Public Buildings, Reliant Park, Renovations
17 Comments

County Judge Ed Emmett says he’s ready to move forward with that idea for renovating the Astrodome he floated a couple years back: turning it into a big open air-conditioned space that could be, you know, used for events and stuff. Emmett’s plan would require replacing the roof, maybe removing the seats, and spiffing up the grounds for indoor festivals. But he’s promised to work closely with the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation — the same organization that’s favored far more complicated ideas for reusing the Dome over the decade it’s spent supposedly studying the issue. Emmett says he’s hopeful Harris County commissioners will have a plan ready within a few months; voting on a bond to pay for the changes could take place as soon as a year from now.

Photo: James Harrison

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Fires
02/18/11 3:46pm

The Short History of the Astrodome

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Hazards, Quicklink, Reliant Park, Utilities
12 Comments

THE SHORT HISTORY OF THE ASTRODOME The Astrodome’s electricity was cut off today after a small transformer fire broke out in a vault on the stadium’s east side. After extinguishing the blaze, firefighters used fans to escort a domeful of smoke out the exit ramp. [MyFox Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: MyFox Houston

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Institutional Buildings
10/28/10 2:12pm

Two New Towers for the Harris County Hospital District

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Kashmere Gardens, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Parking, Texas Medical Center
No Comments

Budget considerations ended up cutting the number of floors in the new ambulatory care center the Harris County Hospital District is about to build at its LBJ General Hospital campus north of 610, but the district is still calling the planned 3-story building a tower. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Ambulatory Care Tower (the low building shown in the center of the rendering above), a single-story connecting building that will link it to the existing hospital, and a similarly towering 3-story parking garage took place yesterday at 5656 Kelley St. on land owned by the district, portions of it the site of condemned housing lots.

Also claiming tower status, but with the extra credentials of 2 additional floors (with what looks like a little elevator cap at one end for good measure): the separate Ambulatory Care Tower the district is building on a former surface parking lot next to the hospital administration building at 2525 Holly Hall west of Almeda, closer to the Texas Medical Center. That building (pictured below) will house specialty clinics now located at Ben Taub as well as a radiation therapy center. A new 9-level parking garage serving both buildings opened last month:

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Demolitions
09/03/10 3:20pm

M.D. Anderson’s Mental Health Break

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Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Texas Medical Center
10 Comments

In from Swamplot roving photographer Candace Garcia: photos of the last moments of the UT Health Science Center’s Mental Science Institute at 1300 Moursund St. in the Med Center. The school’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences deserted the 1965 structure back in February, when it moved to a brand new 6-story Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences building near the corner of Cambridge and OST, south of the main Med Center campus in a new development dubbed UT Research Park. The vacant Moursund building was sold to the building executioners at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who are now busy demolishing it “for future expansion.”

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Attractions
06/24/10 11:48am

Careful Science Guides the Astrodome’s Future

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Proposed Developments, Public Buildings, Redevelopment, Reliant Park
5 Comments

Having displayed a remarkable ability to minimize outside participation in the “open call” for Astrodome redevelopment proposals it conducted half a decade ago, the brilliant and methodical minds behind the Harris County Sports & Convention Corporation now appear ready to demonstrate similar mastery of the process of public-opinion polling. The corporation is counting actual votes in the online poll it set up last week, which allows website visitors from any country to choose from one of 2 kitchen-sink redevelopment proposals — or the garbage-disposal option pictured above. With 5,800 “votes” cast, longtime corporation executive director Willie Loston notes that the “save the Dome” options are winning by a landslide. But wait! Maybe they just haven’t been asking the right people?

To solicit more participation, Loston has asked some of Reliant Park’s tenants — the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Houston Texans and the Offshore Technology Conference – to encourage their constituents to take the survey.

Asked if that could be construed as an attempt to manufacture support for a more costly park makeover, Loston said he does not see it as an attempt to shape the survey’s outcome.

Note to contracted visitors: Local Zip Codes begin with “770.”

Drawing of flattened Astrodome: Reliant Park

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Attractions
06/17/10 2:14pm

Comment of the Day: Write-in Addition to the New Kitchen-Sink Astrodome Redevelopment Plan

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Comments, Proposed Developments, Quicklink, Redevelopment, Reliant Park
10 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRITE-IN ADDITION TO THE NEW KITCHEN-SINK ASTRODOME REDEVELOPMENT PLAN “How about turning the Astrodome into the Smithsonian Museum of Energy and Power? Just like the National Air & Space Museum, it could collect the actual artifacts of the industry that calls Houston home and that plays such an important part in all of our daily lives. You could put a whole supertanker, a few notorious drilling rigs, some significant parts of an oil refinery, working solar panels and several generations of windmill turbines inside. Divide up the concourse spaces for offices (alternative energy business incubators, etc) Could be really interesting and also an appropriate use for the facility.” [SCL, commenting on Latest Astrodome Redevelopment Proposal Features Large Domed Space for People To Mill About, Wondering What To Do with Astrodome]

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