The Chronicle continues its apparent campaign to breath life into the second largest local urban boondoggle (second only to the Metro light rail system) — the proposed Astrodome hotel project (previous posts here). Rice professor and local political pundit Bob Stein comments about the apparent dilemma:
“For public officials, it’s like being in a maze,” Stein said. “You don’t know which turn you make is going to help you. You have the rodeo and the Texans ó the stakeholders ó and then you have the public.”
In reality, there is no dilemma at all. As USC economics professor Peter Gordon observes with regard to such issues, three simple questions need to be addressed: 1) At what cost? 2) Compared to what? and 3) How do you know? Despite the public’s fondness for the Dome, it is an obsolescent hulk that serves no useful purpose and costs a considerable amount each year just to mothball. The cost of the renovation is enormous and will almost certainly require some type of public contribution, particularly given the currently spooked credit and equity markets. Even if the deal could be financed without a large public contribution (I doubt it can), the county still has to face the prospect that the project will fail (many new hotels do) and that large operating subsidies will be necessary in the future. To make matters worse, there is inadequate demand for the city’s existing supply of hotel rooms, much less a supply that is increased by 1,300 rooms that the Astrodome hotel project would contribute. Finally, the current tenants of Reliant Park object to the hotel project.
So, in the face of all of the foregoing, why does the Chronicle continue to beat the drum for the project? Inquiring minds would like to know.
What’s really getting to me on this whole thing is that nostalgia is clouding everyone’s judgment. Yes, there is public fondness for the Astrodome and its place in Houston’s history. But, in reality, it is a gigantic unuseable concrete and steel monstrosity that needs to go.
Why have it around? As a monument to the past? The Polo Grounds, Ebbets Field, Griffith Park, all of the stadiums of yesteryear are gone. Sure, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and Lambeau Field remain, but they all serve a useful purpose (they have legit tenants) who have renovated/upgraded them. The Dome is falling apart and is now in effect unusable as a sports facility.
The right thing to do here would be to bulldoze the place and put parking in. Now there is something that would make the rodeo people and Bob McNair happy. Build a nice museum to the Astrodome somewhere on the Reliant Park site and be done with it.