The county has been delaying and excusing the inevitable for almost a decade now. It's embarrassing. Worse, it's becoming a hazard. Whole chunks of the Astrodome are falling off now and the concrete entryways are too dangerous to walk on.I understand the historical significance to the Astrodome, but it is not that old. It's just a shell made of concrete and steel, less than 50 years old. And like a lot of architecture from the 1960s it is extraordinarily ugly.
Just get the inevitable over with. Tear it down, make the crater into a nice plaza. Quit dragging out what we all know is coming.
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The Astrodome should be an interesting engineering study right now: What does the complete lack of maintenance on enourmous structures in regions of extreme heat and humidity result in after 10 years?
I had heard from various civil engineering types that one problem is that there is still money owed on the Astrodome and that destroying it would actually cost more than it was built for (not adjusted for inflation).
Now in Philly we had our own experiments with what happens when you ignore basic maintenance for a few decades in Veteran's stadium and JFK stadium.
At JFK stadium had the excuse of being actually old.
They better tear it down now before "progress" arrives in the form of historical preservation.
I once worked in a horrible old aircraft hangar whose sole reason for continued existence was because it was deemed historical due to the the specific beam architecture used. The firm had little choice but to continue to use it the delapidated, leaky, asbestos-ridden thing, since it was there and had to stay there. It was an interestingly uncomfortable place to put offices.
Destroying the Astrodome will cost huge money, but maintaining it to new standards -- and God forbid, historical designation as well -- could be much worse. Fortunately (or not) Texas doesn't get as carried away with sentiment about decrepit buildings as some other places do.
Pasadena has the gorgeous 1st State Bank Building. An amazing piece of Usonian style architecture in an otherwise crappy area. Turns out, it has asbestos. So, the cost of fixing it is so horrible nobody in their right minds would fix it up but the cost of tearing it down for the exact same reasons is horrible.
So, they're letting it rot in place until they are "forced" to tear it down. It's a fiscal punt. I imagine the Dome is the exact same way.
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