It is a reflection of how low my expectations have sunk for rational decisions from Harris County officials. I actually felt a sense of relief that officials do not appear to be taking this seriously:
Lights, camera, action: Dome needs a makeover
The Astrodome was a stage for baseball and football prima donnas to strut their stuff, but it could become a forum for Hollywood stars.
At least that’s what would happen if the Houston Association of Entertainment Professionals gets its way.
The association, a new, non-profit group representing film industry workers, has heard that not all county officials support the Astrodome convention hotel plan and has come up with an alternate proposal — turning the Dome into a film production studio.
"It would bring an entire new economy to Houston," said association president Elise Hendrix. "We should make a home for the film-making industry."
Astroturf and stadium seating would give way to studio space where sets could be built, a film-processing operation that could produce dailies, a 100,000-square-foot, underground sound stage and offices.
Hendrix pitched her idea to the Houston Film Commission, an arm of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, last week.
But she and other association members may appear light on the gravitas needed to have their plan taken seriously. Hendrix, 25, is a professional makeup artist who left the University of Louisiana at Lafayette before graduating. She was a fashion design and merchandising major.
The association doesn’t have a web site, only a page on MySpace.
But Hendrix said the association is courting investors who would put up the estimated $50 million to $200 million needed to gut the Dome and turn it into Astrodome Production Facilities. She declined to name investment groups that she is courting.
Willie Loston, director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp., which oversees Reliant Park, said the association hasn’t contacted him about the proposal.
"Great," he said after learning of it. "They got some money?" [. . .]
Given the speculative nature of the Astrodome Hotel boondoggle project, and assuming that the County powers have decided that razing the Dome is political suicide, why aren’t County and Texas Medical Center officials figuring out a way to renovate the Dome into the premiere medical training and education facility in the world? Just a thought.
I would agree with you about the “razing the Dome is political suicide”, except no one has actually come out and suggested it. Everyone dances around the idea, as though the Dome is untouchable, becuase of the sentimental attachment. I think if the citizens of Houston found out the costs of maintaining an essentially useless building on a prime piece of real estate, they might be more willing to go along with the idea of taking it down. But then again, there is probably enough people with power who don’t want it torn down (*cough* Eckels, the Chronicle, Mayor White *cough*) that anyone that steps forward with a plan that didn’t include keeping the outer dome structure intact would get annihilated in the local press.
I like the idea of building the Houston Sports Museum on the site (think the west side of the Dome, over where home plate was), and taking the rest of it down for more parking lots.