Make The Astrodome Great Again
Patrick Creighton; Embrace the Astrodome project, it’s your only hope
Feb 14, 2018, 6:50 am
Deal with it. The Astrodome project is good for the city. Culturemap.com
Tuesday the Harris County Commissioners Court voted unanimously to proceed with a $105M renovation of the Astrodome. The project will raise the floor of the dome by 30 feet, creating 1400 underground parking spaces. It will also create over 500,000 square feet of usable, rentable space to generate revenue.
The space, which is essentially eight acres of wide open weatherproof space, could be used by dozens of festivals and events (the Offshore Technology Conference had been previously given as an example).
This is finally the step forward that the county has needed to take with the Astrodome for over a decade, and should be a happy day in the county to discuss the possibilities the building presents.
However, there are those who are against the plan for a variety of reasons. Those complaints are short sighted, misinformed, or just flat out factually inaccurate. Here’s why:
Complaint A: The Astrodome is an eyesore. It should be torn down.
Whether or not you appreciate the aesthetics of the building, it cannot be torn down. In January 2017, the Texas Historical Commission designated the Astrodome an historical landmark. As the legal custodian of the Antiquities Code, the Texas Historical Commission has jurisdiction on the building now, and any plans for the dome must now be approved by the THC.
Tearing the building down is not a legal option.
Complaint B: It’s a waste of money.
The Astrodome currently costs approximately $177,000 per year to ‘maintain’. The building has been deemed unsuitable for use since 2009, therefore that $177,000 is basically being flushed down a toilet. That is what is known as a waste of money.
The current project is an investment into renovation and future earnings. You have to spend money to make money, right? Well, you especially have to spend it when the building has been neglected for close to two decades. It’s a choice of making it suitable for business to make money or leaving it there to rot and throwing away that maintenance money. At least this alternative gives you something positive.
Complaint C: It should have went to a vote.
The reason past attempts to renovate the Astrodome went to public vote was because new debt was to be incurred in the form of bonds to finance the project. Having the county take on new debt requires a referendum.
In this case, no new debt is being accrued. There is no bond being used to finance the project. There is no new tax being created to finance the project, and there is no tax increase being enacted to finance the project. Hence, no vote was needed.
These are funds the county already has. $35M of which comes from the general fund (property taxes), $35M comes from the Hotel Occupancy Tax (thanks to all our visitors!) and the final $35M will come from the proceeds generated by the Astrodome’s rentals once it’s operational.
Complaint D: Voters already voted for it to be demolished.
This is factually inaccurate. Voters voted down a proposal for a $217M bond to renovate the Astrodome in 2013. There was no proposal on a ballot to tear it down.
At the time, some civic leaders feared that tearing it down would be the most likely outcome following the failure to pass the bond initiative, but no part of that measure was tearing the building down an option that was voted on, nor was it something that was committed to by the Commissioners Court.
Subsequently, the Commissioners Court came up with an alternative plan to tearing down the building which would make the building profitable.
Also, as previously explained in Complaint A, tearing it down is no longer a legal option.
Complaint E: The money should be used for issues related to Hurricane Harvey
This is the ‘low hanging fruit’ complaint. It’s easy to just throw Harvey into the mix on anything to draw up an emotional response, but to be completely honest, the idea that this money being spent on the Astrodome somehow is taking away money from Harvey victims, or from infrastructure repair and improvement, is not only factually inaccurate but it’s a shameful misleading of the public.
Tuesday, Gov. Abbott announced $1 billion in new funding from FEMA for Hurricane Harvey related issues, not limited to buying out flood prone homes, building new seawalls and jetties, restoring sand dunes, channeling waterways, new storm surge protection projects and more. $500M of that money is immediately available, and the rest will be made available on the one year anniversary of the storm in last August. The funds will be used from Rockport to Beaumont.
The unreleased funds are to be issued to those municipalities that submit requests for funding for their projects.
There is an entirely different, and much larger, piggy bank for Harvey recovery. One does not preclude or impede the other.
Also, keep in mind, last week Congress passed a bill allocating $90 billion in relief for areas hit hard by Hurricanes (Texas and Florida). There will be more Federal Aid making its way to Houston as well.
Considering that of the $105 million allocated for the Astrodome project, only $35 million would even be legally eligible for a relief earmark, as the Hotel Occupancy Tax cannot legally be used for Hurricane relief, and the Astrodome revenues do not yet exist. That argument breaks down to “$35 million wasn’t allocated for Harvey related issues but $46 billion was, so, the government is doing it all wrong.” $46 billion vs $35 million. I’m not even going to address that with my usual high level of snark because I clearly don’t have to.
It should be pretty clear by now that this is the best possible way to move forward with the Astrodome, so lose the negativity, stop the hate, and embrace progress. Something great could be on the horizon. Isn’t that better than status quo?
#MAGA. Make Astrodome Great Again!
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
Through 20 games, the Houston Astros have managed just six wins and are in last place in the AL West.
Their pitching staff trails only Colorado with a 5.24 ERA and big-money new closer Josh Hader has given up the same number of earned runs in 10 games as he did in 61 last year.
Despite this, these veteran Astros, who have reached the AL Championship Series seven consecutive times, have no doubt they’ll turn things around.
“If there’s a team that can do it, it’s this team,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said.
First-year manager Joe Espada, who was hired in January to replace the retired Dusty Baker, discussed his team’s early struggles.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s not what we expected, to come out of the shoot playing this type of baseball. But you know what, this is where we’re at and we’ve got to pick it up and play better. That’s just the bottom line.”
Many of Houston’s problems have stemmed from a poor performance by a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. Ace Justin Verlander and fellow starter José Urquidy haven’t pitched this season because of injuries and lefty Framber Valdez made just two starts before landing on the injured list with a sore elbow.
Ronel Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut April 1, has pitched well and is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts this season. Cristian Javier is also off to a good start, going 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in four starts, but the team has won just two games not started by those two pitchers.
However, Espada wouldn’t blame the rotation for Houston’s current position.
“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster how we've played overall,” he said. “One day we get good starting pitching, some days we don’t. The middle relief has been better and sometimes it hasn’t been. So, we’ve just got to put it all together and then play more as a team. And once we start doing that, we’ll be in good shape.”
The good news for the Astros is that Verlander will make his season debut Friday night when they open a series at Washington and Valdez should return soon after him.
“Framber and Justin have been a great part of our success in the last few years,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “So, it’s always good to have those two guys back helping the team. We trust them and I think it’s going to be good.”
Hader signed a five-year, $95 million contract this offseason to give the Astros a shutdown 7-8-9 combination at the back end of their bullpen with Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. But the five-time All-Star is off to a bumpy start.
He allowed four runs in the ninth inning of a 6-1 loss to the Braves on Monday night and has yielded eight earned runs this season after giving up the same number in 56 1/3 innings for San Diego last year.
He was much better Wednesday when he struck out the side in the ninth before the Astros fell to Atlanta in 10 innings for their third straight loss.
Houston’s offense, led by Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, ranks third in the majors with a .268 batting average and is tied for third with 24 homers this season. But the Astros have struggled with runners in scoring position and often failed to get a big hit in close games.
While many of Houston’s hitters have thrived this season, one notable exception is first baseman José Abreu. The 37-year-old, who is in the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million contract, is hitting 0.78 with just one extra-base hit in 16 games, raising questions about why he remains in the lineup every day.
To make matters worse, his error on a routine ground ball in the eighth inning Wednesday helped the Braves tie the game before they won in extra innings.
Espada brushed off criticism of Abreu and said he knows the 2020 AL MVP can break out of his early slump.
“Because (of) history,” Espada said. “The back of his baseball card. He can do it.”
Though things haven’t gone well for the Astros so far, everyone insists there’s no panic in this team which won its second World Series in 2022.
Altuve added that he doesn’t have to say anything to his teammates during this tough time.
“I think they’ve played enough baseball to know how to control themselves and how to come back to the plan we have, which is winning games,” he said.
The clubhouse was quiet and somber Wednesday after the Astros suffered their third series sweep of the season and second at home. While not panicking about the slow start, this team, which has won at least 90 games in each of the last three seasons, is certainly not happy with its record.
“We need to do everything better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “I feel like we’re in a lot of games, but we just haven’t found a way to win them. And good teams find a way to win games. So we need to find a way to win games.”