Astrodome faces uncertain future

For the better part of three decades, Paul Darst's daily job was to preside over the bells, whistles, snorting bulls and blazing six-shooters that roamed the original Astrodome scoreboard and, later, the video boards that ringed the stadium in the late 1980s and 1990s.

Darst now works next door as Reliant Stadium's technology wizard, and his duties rarely require him to walk to the Dome, whose floor now is ringed with risers, chairs and boxes of spare parts for its newer, more glamorous neighbor.

But then there are days like Monday, when Darst boarded a bus and traveled through the big Dome doors in center field, just as Bum Phillips, Earl Campbell and the Luv Ya Blue Oilers did on two memorable nights 30 years ago, inside the onetime Eighth Wonder of the World.

As Darst walked onto the floor of the Dome, which was opened for a rare media tour as Reliant Park's landlords rolled out plans Monday for the old stadium's redevelopment or destruction, he looked around … and remembered.

"Just history," Darst said. "All the things that were part of the past and things I was involved with, it all starts coming back to me. A lot of great things happened there, and you start reliving them."

Some of the trappings of Darst's dreams remain in place. The Astrodome, in fact, looks much as it did in 2005, when it served its last major public function as a refuge for Hurricane Katrina evacuees, and 2008, when it was a staging center for workers in the wake of Hurricane Ike. And, despite the absence of the beloved exploding scoreboard, it doesn't take much imagination to recall the glory days of the Astros and Oilers.

"I'm still somewhat surprised that the building still appears usable," said Willie Loston, executive director of the Harris County Sports and Convention Corporation, which oversees the county-owned complex. "I'm still pretty amazed when I go in there."

Blast from the past

The Dome's floor is laid out in its football configuration, absent the portable stands that surrounded the "catfish hole" field entrance behind home plate. The old sliding pits for first, second and third base are still visible in the bare concrete floor.

The Astros' championship banners have been taken down, as has the Stars and Stripes, although the Lone Star flag of Texas still hangs from the rafters. The hand-operated baseball scoreboard, one of Astros owner Drayton McLane's ideas to spiff up the aging Dome in the mid-1990s, is gone, but advertising signs remain in place for companies thriving (Coca-Cola and Waste Management), rebuilding (Wells Fargo) and about to disappear (Continental Airlines).

Upstairs on the fifth floor, the suites that taxpayers were blackmailed into bankrolling when Oilers owner Bud Adams threatened to leave town in the 1980s still have tables and cushioned chairs in place, ready for the next event.

Few visitors these days

From visitors' vantage point on the ninth floor, a few feet away from the original luxury boxes that have become so important to baseball and football economics at Reliant and other new stadiums, the Dome appears primed and ready to host an event – any event, from the baseball games and football games that were once its staples to the local family's bar mitzvah that was one of the last events staged at the Dome in 2003 or so.

Loston said Reliant Park workers rarely enter the Dome except for maintenance or security duties. As for four-legged occupants, he said, "I would be surprised if there are not cats in there. The building is not so secure that you could keep a cat out."

The days of feeding felines to keep the mouse population under control, however, are a thing of the past, he said.

Loston, by the way, is not wholly unemotional about the Dome himself. He first stepped on the field in the mid-1960s as a band member at Wheatley High School, part of an all-city band that performed the national anthem before one of the building's early events.

"From a personal basis, I've got a deep history with the building," he said. "For me, the exterior has more meaning than the interior."

But if the Dome remains under one of the options being considered by the county, the exterior could drastically change, with glass replacing the current concrete façade and solar panels depicting a map of the globe on the roof.

"Our intent is to update it, but not to the point that we make it unrecognizable or spoil visually what it means to so many of us," he said.

Three options on table

Now, Loston wants to hear from Harris County taxpayers on which of three options for Reliant Park they would prefer.

One option, to the tune of about $88 million, would demolish the Dome and use the land for a fountain that would replicate the building's familiar pattern of girders and ceiling tiles. That option also would call for more than $300 million in public funding to add convention space at Reliant Park and replace the aging Reliant Arena on the park's southeast side and, if a developer can be found, more than $300 million in private funds for a convention center hotel.

The second and third options, with the addition of private funding, could revamp the Dome and update Reliant Park's convention facilities at a cost ranging up to $1.35 billion.

"Everyone knows the Astrodome is an issue that has to be dealt with," Loston said. "Those of us who are close to the complex know that there are two issues — the Dome and the Arena. We're making the public aware that (the arena) is another issue that has to be addressed at some point in time. We think it's a good idea to do it in tandem with the Astrodome issue."

Public's input wanted

Harris County residents can offer their thoughts at Reliant Park's Web site - ReliantPark.com.

"I cannot wait to see what happens," Loston said. "I don't think it will take us long to find out where the public is. I don't think it will be a long tale on that. How you react is the next question."

Loston said he hopes to draw "well into the thousands" of responses and said the poll will remain active "as long as we're getting a reasonable stream of comments. If it slows to a trickle, we'll shut (the poll) down."

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