COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE ASTRODOME HONEYPOT PLAN, CHEAPER THAN DEMOLITION “If someone just gave me $50 million, I’d structure a perpetuity yielding no less than a 1.2% return (which shouldn’t be at all difficult when 30-year T-bonds yield a 2.85% return) and maintain the Dome FOREVER. I say this because I recall a Chronicle article citing a cost of $600,000 per year to maintain it in mothballs. That’s just not very much money. Unless there’s a pressing need to spend $140 per square foot to reclaim the land (which would be idiotic given that Astroworld sold its land for $17 PSF and that the Reliant Arena is also on the chopping block and would yield more land), then the only thing that could possibly make sense is to do nothing. Simply wait. Then . . . the first private concern that can pony up the cash to do something appropriate with the venue that will generate hotel and/or sales tax revenue gets to capture the $600k per year for themselves. I suspect that it wouldn’t take particularly long. And then the taxpayers come out AHEAD as compared to demolishing it and the politicians get to take well-deserved credit.” [TheNiche]