A Doomed Dome?
Astrodome proposals fly in right until the deadline: Save it procrastinators are eager to be heard
Did you have an idea for how to deal with the Astrodome? Did you take the time to submit your plan, which was due to the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation by the end of the workday Monday?
If so, you're hardly alone.
A representative from the HCSCC tells CultureMap that, while it is unable to specify how many private proposals have been received to-date, the office is "continuing to receive them" up to the deadline.
For consideration, plans must be compatible with the existing Reliant Park master plan, compliant with existing contracts and come complete with a viable funding mechanism. That last part is key.
"We're not short on good ideas for the Dome," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said at the Super Bowl LI celebration press conference on May 22. "We're short of a good set of ideas with money."
The HCSCC board will consider the submitted proposals in the coming weeks and then submit those submissions it deems "feasible," along with the body's own recommendation, to the Harris County Commissioners Court by June 25.
Still partial to the steel skeleton idea from the University of Houston grad student? That one will bypass the HCSCC for presentation directly to the county commissioners.
Want more on the debate? Read the contrasting viewpoints of CultureMap network news director Chris Baldwin's column on the need to tear down the Astrodome and CultureMap contributor James Glassman's plea to save what he calls "Houston's Eiffel Tower" at all costs.