HOUSTON – (Commentary By Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report) – The Astrodome, an engineering milestone that captures Houston’s can-do spirit, stands as an emblem of the city’s identity. Demonstrating decisive leadership, Harris County officials voted Tuesday to allocate funds to restore the structure and give it new purpose.
The world’s first air-conditioned domed stadium opened with great fanfare. Mickey Mantle hit the Dome’s first home run on April 9, 1965, during a game attended by President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Designated a historic landmark last year, the Astrodome now joins sites like the Alamo and the State Capitol as a protected building. It cannot be demolished or significantly altered without state commission approval.
In recent years, some Houstonians urged demolition of the empty Astrodome—the structure once hailed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Estimates to demolish it had reached about $30 million.
The Astrodome sits on a 350-acre county-owned complex near Loop 610 and Kirby Drive, an area dominated by a vast parking expanse with 26,000 spaces that remain empty most days.
The $105 million redevelopment plan approved by the county will repurpose the Astrodome’s lower levels into two tiers of 1,400 below-grade parking spaces. The dome’s 500,000-square-foot interior can serve as exhibition space for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the Offshore Technology Conference, concerts and other large events.
After the Astros and the Oilers moved to modern facilities, the historic stadium sat unused for years. Maintenance declined and the once-celebrated landmark fell into neglect.
Many had forgotten that the Astrodome symbolized Houston’s relationship to the space age. Astronauts trained a few miles away at NASA’s facilities in southeast Houston. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy famously challenged the nation at Rice University to land a man on the moon before the decade’s end—an effort directed from Houston’s Mission Control.
In the 1960s astronauts were national heroes. The city’s new Major League Baseball team adopted a space-themed name, and ushers and groundskeepers at the Astrodome wore space-inspired uniforms.
Designed by architects Hermon Lloyd and W.B. Morgan with the firm Wilson, Morris, Crain, and Anderson, the Astrodome presented unique engineering challenges: its roof spans 600 feet without internal supports, and its air-conditioning system had to move conditioned air unprecedented distances—about 300 feet—to cool the interior effectively.
Buckminster Fuller, the renowned architect and proponent of the geodesic dome, was consulted early on by Judge Roy Hofheinz, the Astrodome’s driving force and a master marketer. Hofheinz, a former Houston mayor and county judge who had managed Lyndon Johnson’s congressional and Senate campaigns, promoted the venue as the “Eighth Wonder.” He occupied an extravagant suite atop the Dome, and the facility’s early corporate skyboxes became lucrative, if lofty, hospitality spaces.
Hofheinz faced a major challenge after construction: the dome’s roof prevented natural grass from growing on the playing surface, and grass is essential for baseball. Working with Monsanto, he helped develop a synthetic alternative that soon became known as “Astroturf,” a major innovation in sports surfaces.
Innovation, entrepreneurship, and open opportunity define Houston. With minimal zoning and a culture that prizes initiative, the city rewards hard work and bold ideas rather than pedigrees or elite credentials.
The Astrodome stands as a physical and symbolic testament to Houston’s entrepreneurial spirit. It is encouraging that county leadership has committed resources to restore this iconic building and secure its usefulness for decades to come.
Feb. 13, 2018 Realty News Report Copyright 2018
Commentary by award-winning journalist Ralph Bivins, editor of Texas-based Realty News Report.