Features
Ideas Floated For Astrodome
Houston’s historic Astrodome would be demolished in a $66 million plan being floated by the Houston Texans NFL team and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.
Photo: Courtesy Gensler
One concept for the future of the Houston Astrodome is a $66 million green space surrounding a miniature replica of the historic but unusable stadium, shown here in an artists rendering. The space would include an “Astrodome Hall of Fame.”
They have yet to make a formal proposal to Harris County commissioners. But formal or not, they have compiled a 37-page brochure mostly of artist renderings that show the domed stadium replaced with green space and “Astrodome Hall of Fame.”
The plan was first reported by the Houston Chronicle. The plan comes two months after the chairman of the county’s board of commissions asked the stadium’s stakeholders to come up with an idea for what to do with the decrepit Astrodome.
Baseball’s Houston Astros vacated the stadium in 2000 and it was declared unsuitable for occupancy in 2009. Rodeo operations chief Leroy Shafer said commissioners have been briefed on the concept, but no funding source has been identified.
“This has to be developed further, but it is one more option,” Shafer said. One fly in the ointment would be if the Texas Historical Commission bestows an antiquities designation on the Astrodome when it considers the issue in late July. If it is gets the designation, any proposals to alter or demolish it would have to be approved by the commission.