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June 27, 2012
Houston considers building Russian nesting stadiums
With the notion of spending $655 million to renovate the Astrodome and the neighboring Reliant Arena (neither of which have teams to play in them) predictably a non-starter, Harris County sports authority officials are now looking at building an arena inside the dome. Sports Corp. chair Edgardo Colon guesses that this would cost a mere $400 million, though seeing as that no one has decided exactly how this would be done, it has to be considered an especially wild-assed guess.
The Reliant Arena needs replacing, say Houston officials, because ... okay, I can't actually find anyone explaining why this is a good idea. The arena has been mostly empty pretty much forever, and though I guess you could argue that it's the only 8,500-seat facility in Houston (plans for a new arena would keep capacity between 8,000 and 10,000 seats), there isn't exactly a screaming demand for venues that size. Though Stockton, California, did build a 10,000-seat arena a few years ago, and that city's been doing ... oops.
+1 for the headline alone.
Posted by Greg on June 27, 2012 11:08 AM
"...$29.9 million the county still owes on the 47-year-old building, which has not been home to a professional sports team in 12 years and has been deemed unfit for occupancy by city inspectors since 2009..."
with this scheme they'll throw good $'s after bad. the place will remain empty and the amount mentioned above will look like pocket change.
just knock it down, gouge the collectors w/artifacts and move on...