50 Years and Counting: What Does the Future Hold for the Astrodome? 

It has been 50 years since the Astrodome first opened to worldwide acclaim as the world’s first domed, air-conditioned, multipurpose facility. From the beginning it was more than just a building; it was an experience of awe and a demonstration of civic swagger.1 As the brainchild of enigmatic former Houston mayor and political stalwart Judge Roy Hofheinz, the Astrodome opened to much fanfare, including a visit from President Lyndon B. Johnson and first lady Lady  Bird Johnson at an exhibition game between the Houston Astros and New York Yankees.2

By 2015, on the 50th anniversary of its opening, the Astrodome had not aged gracefully. Since it had been vacated by its longtime tenants the Houston Oilers (who became the Tennessee Titans) in 1996 and the Houston Astros in 1999, the Astrodome had outlived its usefulness as a sports facility.

Since the Houston Astros played their last game in the Astrodome on October 9, 1999, the stadium’s most notable use was as an emergency refuge for some 25,000 evacuees from New Orleans who had been displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.3

On its half-century anniversary, the structure that once captured the public’s imagination for its innovation presented itself as a dingy, outdated, and unused structure. Placed in the shadow of the much newer, larger, and boxier NRG Stadium (home of the Houston Texans), the Astrodome sat much like an abandoned puppy that is desperately looking, praying, and hoping for someone to care for it before it is too late.

As regional officials discussed plans for its future, or its lack thereof, the Astrodome was still very much in the public consciousness. For many Houstonians it served as a cultural icon of a bygone era, as was evidenced by the sale of Astrodome seats and other surviving memorabilia in 2013, 2014, and 2015 that netted around $1 million each time. There have also been successful sales of patches of Astroturf and furniture from the stadium’s luxury suites.4

In an attempt to continue to raise awareness and support for the preservation of the Astrodome, Houston Arts & Media in January 2016 announced the “Our Astrodome Art Contest,” through which children and adults could submit their best “artistic and imaginative representations of the 8th Wonder of the World.” The contest was part of a growing movement to garner support to save and repurpose the Astrodome. Positioning the Astrodome alongside the Alamo as the two defining architectural icons of Texas, Houston Arts & Media hoped to turn the conversation about the Astrodome away from its state of abandonment and toward both the significance of its past and the possibilities for its future.5  

To many citizens who arrived in Houston – whether by birth or by choice – after the novelty of the Astrodome had worn off, the dilapidated arena was an eyesore to which they had no attachment. Those who opposed the Dome’s preservation believed it should be razed to make room for additional parking for fans who attend Houston Texans games and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. 

The potential destruction of the Astrodome loomed as a sad fate for the first sports venue that rendered the outdoor elements completely inconsequential. Mosquitos, rainouts, and heat exhaustion were rendered moot6  and made attending a baseball game much more enjoyable than it had been at its predecessor, Colt Stadium, which had been the home of the Colt 45s (later renamed the Astros) from 1962 to 1964. Former Astros great Jimmy Wynn emphasized the importance of the Astrodome when he said, “If it wasn’t for Judge Hofheinz getting this built, baseball wouldn’t have survived in Houston, the heat and the humidity was just too much.”7 

Beyond its significance to baseball in the subtropical climate of the Gulf of Mexico, Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne has noted that the Astrodome is a monument to the “American confidence and Texas swagger of the 1960s” as it perfectly captured this place in time.8 Such a statement about the impact and value of the Astrodome raises the question of what the future of the Astrodome is to be.

Except for the Texas-sized rats that called it home, the Astrodome has sat vacant since 2008, when it was closed to the public due to a litany of code violations.9 Since that time various proposals to repurpose the Dome – from a shopping mall to an amusement park and everything in between – have been debated and rejected. All the while, the stadium continued to deteriorate to the point that demolition seemed imminent, so much so that proponents of its preservation got it added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2014, for its architectural and cultural significance, in an attempt to eliminate destruction as a viable option; however, while such designation allowed Harris County to gain state and federal tax credits, it did not automatically save the Astrodome from demolition.10

Many observers believe that the Astrodome’s demolition would be “a failure of civic imagination”11 and a counterintuitive move for the largest major city without any zoning restrictions, one that thrives on reimagining itself through innovation. As of 2016 the Astrodome existed as a ward of Harris County, which owned the structure, and its fate rested largely with four Harris County commissioners and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett,12 who said he saw the stadium as a sound structure that has already been paid for by the county and that he believed a solid and mutually advantageous plan should be developed for all parties that had an interest in the Dome’s fate. As of 2016, however, Emmett was unable to garner unanimous support for any proposal from Harris County’s commissioners, the public, or the major tenants of the NRG Complex (the Houston Texans, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, and the Offshore Technology Conference).

If the Astrodome was to survive, officials had to imagine new possibilities for it to keep it in touch with the newer, younger population of Houston. The value of repurposing the city’s icon would be not only to breathe life into the Dome but also to once again put Houston at the forefront of architectural innovation.13 The primary roadblock to accomplishing this feat was that Houston has a “history problem.”14 The city’s diverse population has a tendency to look forward, without an appreciation for a past in which it had no part; it considered the building to be too old to be useful but too new to be worthy of historic preservation.

Another roadblock was the lack of a shared vision for the future of the Astrodome. After a failed 2013 referendum to repurpose the Astrodome, the Houston Texans and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo commissioned a study to find another option for a resolution of what could be done with it.15 

The resulting NRG Astrodome proposal, which had an estimated total project cost of $66 million, called for the removal of the entire Astrodome structure except for the giant drive-through concrete pillars encapsulating the outdoor perimeter of the Astrodome. The proposal would have freed up approximately 8.8 acres of open space and created 385,000 square feet of usable green space within the concrete pillars. The proposal followed the precedent of Houston’s  Discovery Green, an enormously popular and successful repurposing of urban green space located downtown near Minute Maid Park, the successor to the Astrodome as the home of the Houston Astros. The proposal would have also opened up the flow of traffic around the Astrodome and would have created a pedestrian thoroughfare to an open area that could have been used for outdoor activities and programmable space. A 25,000-square-foot Astrodome replica, an Astrodome Hall of Fame, and a restaurant would have been located at the center of the area.16 In the end, the removal of the Astrodome as central to the plan left the proposal as nothing more than another interesting idea that was rejected.

The latest idea as of this writing was to repurpose the structure into an indoor multi-use park and to continue to make the Astrodome a place for traditional outdoor activities in a climate-controlled arena, a plan for its future similar to Judge Roy Hofheinz’s initial vision of bringing baseball indoors.17 Though the new proposal was certainly plausible, Emmett readily admitted that  “the worst thing you can [do] is repurpose and then have the repurposing fail.”18 To this end, due diligence was paid to determine the feasibility and benefit of such a project, including a study from the Urban Land Institute and a visit to Tropical Islands resort in Krausnick, Germany.

In March 2015 the Urban Land Institute, an advisory panel of experts in real estate, land-use planning, and development, released its recommendations for the Astrodome at the behest of the Harris County Commissioners Court.19 First and foremost, the group reached the unanimous decision that the Astrodome should be conserved and repurposed for civic use.20 In very general terms, the institute’s proposal planned to keep about 100,000 square feet of green space in the center of the Astrodome, with areas for events around the sides of the structure. The plan also called for about 1,500 parking spaces on the dome’s lower level.21

What the actual park might look like if that plan was followed was anyone’s guess, but it could include observation decks, trails, exercise facilities, and space for festivals. According to Todd Mead, a panel member and senior associate at PWP Landscape Architecture in Berkeley, California, the proposal is “built upon the idea of a park that’s indoors that makes an outdoor connection and a civic contribution as well.”22 Another possibility could be to add adventure elements which could “include zip lines – allowing adventuresome folks to speed down the equivalent of an 18-story building from the upper levels inside the Dome.”23

In addition to soliciting the Urban Land Institute’s ideas, Houston city and county officials visited the Tropical Islands, a domed facility near Berlin, to explore an alternative proposal for the Astrodome.24 Built in 2000 on an old Luftwaffe airfield, the dome was to serve as an airship hangar for the German company CargoLifter AG; however, in 2002, the company went insolvent and the dome closed. The facility was turned into an indoor rainforest with more than 50,000 plants, water, and beach, accommodations for 6,000 visitors, a hot-air balloon and an adventure park.

The final obstacle to the preservation of the Astrodome was funding, a major sticking point as evidenced by a failed bond referendum in 2013 in which 53.5 percent of voters said no to the $200 million initiative to repurpose the Astrodome with public monies.25 Emmett then presented the idea of developing a public-private partnership that would be overseen by a conservancy, which would allow for the collection of funds from a variety of sources and would thus negate the need for taxpayer funds.26 Historic tax credits, philanthropic donations, and the creation of tax-increment reinvestment zones would likely alleviate the need to call for a bond referendum on the Astrodome,27 which it was thought might give this idea the traction it needed to finally put the Astrodome toward the path of revitalization.

Houston preservationist James Glassman has called the Astrodome “the physical manifestation of Houston’s soul.”28 It is the architectural landmark of Houston, but it is currently relegated to a purgatory of neglect and limbo in which its glorious past has been lost.

Though the Astrodome deserves a better fate than its current state of existence, it remained unknown as of the writing of this article whether the “Eighth Wonder of the World” would once again become a structure of innovation that captures the public’s imagination or whether it would be bulldozed and turned into just another parking lot.

 

Notes

1 Richard Justice, “Astrodome Remembered as Baseball Innovation,”MLB.com, April 18, 2015.

2 Nate Berg, “Houston’s Astrodome: ‘the Eighth Wonder of the World’ – a History of Cities in 50 Buildings, Day 12,” The Guardian, April 9, 2015.

3 Wayne Chandler, “Astrodome,” Texas State Historical Association, June 9, 2010.

4 Mike Acosta, “Astroturf: Then, Now and Possibly Again.” Our Astrodome, 2015.

5 Craig Hlavaty, “Astrodome Art Contest Announced for Artistic Houstonians,” Chron.com, Houston Chronicle.

6 Jeré Longman, “Dirty and Dated, but Irreplaceable,” New York Times, May 26, 2013.

7 Justice.

8 Christopher Hawthorne, “Why the Astrodome Is Worth Saving,” Los Angeles Times, November 5, 2013.

9 Ibid.

10 “Astrodome Named Historic Place,” Associated Press, January 31, 2014.

11 Longman.

12 “About Our Astrodome,” Our Astrodome, 2015.

13 “About Our Astrodome.”

14 Berg.

15 “Statement Regarding NRG Astrodome Proposal,” Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, July 10, 2014.

16 “Astrodome Site Study,” NRG, February 2014.

17 Emmett.

18 Marcelino Benito, “Could a German Tropical Paradise Help Save the Astrodome?” KHOU, May 3, 2015.

19 Houston Astrodome, Urban Land Institute.

20 Pat Hernandez, “Urban Land Institute Proposes Astrodome Plan,” Houston Public Media, December 19, 2014.

21 Craig Hlavaty, “New Urban Land Institute Plan for Astrodome Calls for Multi-Usage, Parking Below,” Chron.com, Houston Chronicle, March 23, 2015.

22 Ralph Bivins, “Visions of a New Life for Houston’s Historic Astrodome,” Urban Land, January 29, 2015.

23 Ibid.

24 Benito.

25 Berg.

26 Gabrielle Banks, “A New Plan Emerges to Save the Astrodome,” Houston Chronicle, July 28, 2015.

27 Hlavaty, “New Urban.”

28 Longman.