Cleveland company proposes $200m geodesic dome over Browns stadium, nobody laughs (much)

In my rush last month to wonder why on earth Cleveland would want to build a dome over the Cleveland Browns‘ stadium, I overlooked another important question: How on earth would Cleveland build a dome atop a stadium that wasn’t designed to support one? Now we have the answer: a $200 million geodesic dome.

In reaction to incoming team owner Jimmy Haslam’s recent intimations that he might consider building a dome over the lakefront stadium, local architecture and engineering firm Ralph Tyler Companies has dreamed up a way to possibly make it happen.

The idea: A free-standing, glazed geodesic dome — 1,100 feet wide and 380 feet high — could straddle the stadium, shielding it from the elements, the company’s director of architecture, Geoffrey Varga, said in an interview Friday.

The dome, which Varga estimates could cost anywhere from $150 to $200 million, could open a world of possibilities for the facility’s off-season use and likely break a few world records while at it, he said.

I had no idea that Guinness had a listing for “Stupidest Waste of Money Ever,” but I agree that this would be a contender. The Cleveland Plain Dealer suggests that in addition to allowing the stadium to be used for all those events that are just dying to book a 70,000-seat indoor venue, a $200 million dome would help trim the $5 million a year in maintenance that the city spends on maintaining the structure. Er, except for the part where they’d now have to maintain a 40-story geodesic dome. I don’t even want to think about the window-washing bills.

In any event, Cleveland city councilmember Michael Polensek, who got this whole dome ball rolling in the first place, said he wouldn’t use city money to build it, and suggested that any would-be dome builders contact Haslam, which is likely to be the end of that. Though council president Martin J. Sweeney did praise the idea on Friday as a possible “galactic shield for alien invasion for the 120,000 people who can fit into it” — a statement the PD cited as “a tacit commentary on the likelihood of it ever being built.” But at least we’ll always have the wacky renderings: