Dieseldrvr

The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo owns that land, they bought it in parcels over time going back many years. The full lot borders Reed, Almeda, and West Airport roads. The contestants lot is there, where many of the rodeo cowboys park their rigs and have their horses, the Carnival employees live in a lot over there in their rigs and have their equipment ready. The paved portion of the lot is the large Reed Rd park and ride operated by HLSR, it's a great way to get to and from the rodeo because you bypass alot of the traffic. There's also a committee there called Breeders Greeters who stages livestock exhibitors before sending them over to the Reliant livestock gates. They have had alot of work done out there to make this a great area for the Shows use.

I always remember celebrity watching. Either my parents would drop us off, or we would ride our bikes, depending on the weather, to the Galleria with our stack of baseball cards. We would wait all around the entrance to the Westin Galleria, and would get autographs from every player we could identify. I don't know if the teams all still stay there or not, but all the teams playing the Astro's would stay there and we would all sit around with pockets of sharpies, waiting for autographs. Oh, and sneaking up too the health club to smoke on the patio and look in the windows on the track to the ice rink. And snagging some food from the meeting rooms in the hotel when you didn't bring enough money to last you past the arcade and candy store.

No, in the end, they are saving their revenue's, one of which is a non profit who provides far more than any hotel would provide to Houston. They are looking out for their LEGAL contracts which are thankfully protected by law, not just the whims of people wanting to give away county owned land.

Would wholeheartedly agree with you, Americanized Italian. And in a city like Houston with such amazing Italian selections and heritage, it's hard to stomach half done Italian food, same goes for Romano's and Olive Garden. Stick with the good ones, usually non chains, though Carrabba's seems to have done it very well.

I would somewhat agree with you, although I thought it was very good. Luckily Houston is blessed to have a large number of great Italian restaurants and grills. But hopefully this restaurant will be reborn in some capacity, because the staff and the food and the Happy Hours were great.

This is indeed sad, this is one of the best restaurants in Houston over the years it's been there. They never should have changed the name, but the food has not suffered over time, truly a Houston gem, hopefully they can find a way to relocate it.

I'd say more like he's forcing anyone who comes forward with an idea to make sure they deal honestly and fairly with the Texans and Rodeo who are the major tenants to whom the County has contractual obligations.

2 months a year since 1966 I think, by far the parks largest tenant of it's time. What does that have to do with adding convention space to the site for the county's use, at no cost to them? Instead of a hotel which would lease away county land for 50+ years?

That's the beauty of the Dome redevelopment by the Rodeo, it would be developed into a facility that could be dictated by the county to be used for whatever purpose they want to make money, concerts, sporting events, conventions, shows, whatever. The hotel is the only proposal so far dictating the entire use of the facility, so you are against the hotel then? As you could with an event centered redevelopment, and it would be owned by the County.

What are you talking about? No currently used facility sit's empty for the rest of the year, please explain?

Hmm, 2,000,000 people spending that kind of money is a lot if they're spending it at the hotel over 20 days not to go to HLSR fund. 3000 over the time period in question, 20 days, is not nearly as much, considering the vast amount of the money they will spend would be at the hotel, not Rodeo, since we're debating whether Rodeo would lose money, core to the issue. The fact is it violates the lease agreements.

I agree, way off target, I apologize if I have come off sounding rude at times, but there is too much misinformation. The argument IS simple, the fact is there would be many dollars spent at the Hotel, directly impacting the Rodeo and possibly the Texans, no dispute there, unless you say no money will be spent at the hotel? Nice fantasy. Hotel provides: 3000 maybe, Rodeo provides 100,000 per day, big difference in who provides the concession spenders, and a new hotel with what they are proposing would certainly get many of those dollars that the Rodeo brings in. And fact is that the ARC proposal directly violated the lease agreements and contracts, so it's their fault for not doing due diligence to make sure their plan was feasible, no one elses. And the idea that the redevelopment into a County owned event facility is only serving HLSR simply isn't true, how does the Arena currently only serve the rodeo? The Houston Comet's would beg to differ with you, as it's their new home, as it is to many concerts and other events, so how is that only serving one group?

If you are so against the entire facility that the County owns, why are you not saying tear it all down? The 350 million wasn't provided by you, it was paid for mostly by Texans, HLSR, and hotel taxes, so you provided some tax breaks for building it? Wow, I'm sure you've more than made that up by revenue generated, not to mention the economic impact and extra taxes for having all the facilities they either built themselves or helped bring about and paid partially for. So there you go, remember that next time you say you want or use county facilities in the same breath you say you are complaining about the debt they cause, you're counteracting your own point.

Where did I say sue, I would say the County would have to offer up this at minimum in order to get HLSR to agree to waive it's legal lease terms in order to let this hotel be built. Why would they give up millions in revenue to it's charity on a project they feel hurts the site as a whole and doesn't best represent the citizens? That would be a fiscally stupid idea, certainly not in the best interests of the charity recipients. And again, the Rodeo helped build that stadium for YOU, and provided that roof so you are comfortable while you watch events in the stadium THEY helped build. Do you go to OTC, ever been to a car show, or ANY event prior to the Center being built??? THEY ARE THE REASON YOU WERE ABLE TO DO THAT. Hmm, I guess they have given you quite a bit huh?

Do you dispute these facts? Do you also dispute that the Rodeo supported and paid for construction overrun's and costs, as I understand is more than 50 million dollars to make your Reliant Stadium that you watch the Texans in, and other events, but don't quote me on that, I'm not anyone involved with that deal. But numerous articles I have seen refer to the investment the rodeo had to make in order to bring the NFL to Houston and build the facility.

So I guess by your lack of logic, Reliant Center is a barn? Because that's what it is for the entirety of the Show, so is The AstroArena, is that a barn? How do you come up with this stuff? Was the old compaq center a circus because it had one every year? That was absolutely not the description given, it was given that would be the use of it during the show, the rest of the year it would function as the rest of the facilities that do that same thing during the show, a county earning event facility. So try again with something real. 1. tear it down, Rodeo is completely against this and would fight for this to never happen, they could use the facilities. 2. Still not listening? The county isn't paying anything, it's cash flow positive as it sits from Rodeo alone, so you're making money. 3. You're saying it's better monetarily for the County to lease it 50 plus years to a private firm to make most of the money, versus let a group redevelop it at their own expense, Rodeo's, and DONATE it back to the county as they have done numerous times with the facilities there, and would pay to rent it back every year, and it would generate direct event money for the County and improve the total event package offered at Reliant domain? Again, no rocket scientist to figure out the Rodeo's plan would substantially provide more money to the county than a few tax dollars. Not to mention all the jobs to renovate and operate the facility, might not be as many as the hotel, but would the County sacrifice all of that for a few service jobs that will probably be around anyways by a hotel probably built offsite? So leases, total facility donation and redevelopment cost donation, and Event revenue don't add up to taxes? I'm sure you would be upset when the County has to reimburse the Rodeo for millions in lost revenue because the ARC violates the legal leases and contracts between the County and Rodeo, there goes all of your tax revenue. Unfortunately for you, this Rodeo can't, I doubt there's enough tents in the state that could handle this show. I seriously doubt Houstons "thriving" status rests on this hotel being built at ONLY this site on County land. Again, I have no idea where people get this barn concept, I guess that Reliant Stadium is strictly a rodeo arena, not an NFL stadium, just because it has a rodeo in it?

Once again, your statements are totally frought with misstatements and I can't seem to understand where you come up with this stuff. Please find one reference ANY Rodeo official, or I have EVER ALLUDED OR IMPLIED that destruction of the Dome would be what they are trying to do? The Rodeo is trying to preserve the facility MORE THAN ANY OTHER GROUP! Where do you come up with this stuff? Also the Charity that you talk about returns 87% of all of those millions to the community, so 87 cents of every single dollar you spend out there goes back to a portion of the community to help education, this is not a for profit organization. And where do you not hear the fact that the taxpayers are not spending a single dime on the dome's mothball expenses, the Rodeo has paid those and every penny of expenses 5 times over EVERY YEAR. so that argument is no longer valid, because the Rodeo ALONE keeps the Dome CASH FLOW POSITIVE AND ALWAYS HAS, it doesn't take even a high school degree to add and subtract the simple math, if all of the yearly expenses are 2 million, including lights and ALL expenses, which that's probably an overstatement, and the Rodeo brings the county well in excess of $10 million, you do the math. I feel the need to capitalize words because you don't seem to be reading clearly. What of any of this is not understood? Where do you see anyone dismissing the views and the best interests of the citizens?

Red, it's not a PR war, it's simple logic and reality. I simply can't understand people who can't see the forest for the trees.

Seriously, I'm tired of this, please, ANYONE, provide ONE SINGLE shred of evidence anyone who is a Rodeo official has indicated they will make a Barn out of the Astrodome? Housing animals for the show is something every single facility out there does during the Show, so you can't use the show's days as evidence, because that would make Reliant Center a barn too, and I doubt you would say it's a barn when OTC is in there. And where do you get these things about the Dome is or would be "red ink" if the RODEO paid for and redeveloped the Dome and DONATED it back to the County just like EVERY other construction project they have completed there??? And how can you say that they should treat HLSR as just another tenant, THEY'RE NOT, they have invested in the entire facilities you see there, have helped pay for the new stadium you watch games in, and have improved the entire place, they're hardly just "tenants". You talk about the Dome's costs, how can you even use that line that simply isn't true, the Rodeo alone has paid many times over ALL the costs every year for the Dome. I'm not sure how the best interests of the constituency is to make a single use facility out of possible convention space that could earn money for the county? Where is your logic?

More with the "barn" reference?? I think we have firmly established that is a fabrication that somehow people didn't read the actual idea before speaking. When has ANYONE indicated it would be a barn, because the Rodeo certainly hasn't. Also, when will you research what you and several others are saying about what the citizens have given the Rodeo, want to look in the mirror and direct that back to yourself?? What the Rodeo has given the community is something NO OTHER city can claim. If your city had the Super Bowl EVERY YEAR you wouldn't bring in as much money to the citizens of the County as the Rodeo does EVERY YEAR, that's just Economic impact to businesses in the area, meaning many of the citizens. The Rodeo also provided several of your precious buildings on the site, as well as much of the reason you even have the new facilities that are there, those are facts you are completely ignoring. They have also provided scholarships to thousands of kids, and educational programs to hundreds of thousands. Why are you ignoring the facts here? Where did any Rodeo official indicate they wouldn't save the Dome in it's original state, but fixed up and renovated to further it's purpose? Your silly company that wants to "redevelop" it want's to strip it of virtually any use to the majority of the County's citizens, strip it of it's architectural significance, and strip it from the County having control over it's own land.

You would be correct in that I am one of the 35,000 members of the show and one of the 19,000 committepersons that come from every zip code in the county. I have been on a committee for 7 years and grew up going to the shows, I am also very passionate about them, make no mistake, which is why I get so bent out of shape when people go off spouting things that aren't true about the show. I also am a rational thinking human, which leads me to understand the truth about the Rodeo's stance on the issues, and the fact that you haven't been able to provide any information to the contrary. And while I am very sorry your experience with the Show isn't one that will keep you returning, rest assured they are doing the best they can for their patrons, while keeping their ultimate goal in mind, which is raising as much money as they can for the youth programs, teacher and school programs, and the scholarships they provide alongside the largest and most influential Livestock show in the agribusiness industry. But they will certainly respond if there is a significant number of people who like you feel that a hotel is more important than keeping the Dome useful to more than 1300 rooms of beds, and although I don't know for sure, I suspect the vast majority of people would rather attend events and such in the Dome than care if some people in town for a conference have a place to stay. I don't foresee a significant number of people not going to the show just because they want to have a hotel ONSITE instead of nearby, or instead of a useful facility to the greater citizens of the county. And I'm sure the millions of past patrons, scholarship recipients, teachers, FFA and 4H involved families, along with the tens of thousands of current and past committeepeople/bigwigs or whatever you would like to say, they're all VOLUNTEERS, would support that the greater good of providing those services through the charitable mission of the Show rather than lease county land away to an entity that would provide the county nothing. If the Rodeo proposes as I think they would and have indicated in their statements to the media, it would provide the county and it's residents, as well as the site's tenants, the only plan that keeps the Astrodome's integrity that supporters of keeping it want, as well as it's original and best purpose, to hold events.

I think the Rodeo, Texans, and the like would have a FAR better data analysis as to the patrons of their events and their spending habits, they have tracked them for a long time as do most events, so they can better capitalize on their market. Your comparisons are totally irrelevant to the situation. I am not defending the Texans stance here, I don't know all about why they oppose it, I am more concerned with the Rodeo's point, which so far, no one has provided any evidence to the contrary. Neither of your examples are even applicable because neither the Stros or the Rockets DEPEND on the shopping and concessions for revenue, as Rodeo does. If the shopping and restaurants that surrounded them were owned by the rockets/Stros, and someone was granted permission to take a huge portion of space, smack in the middle, that they previously used, and built a hotel and bars and restaurants and possibly shopping, they would do everything in their power to stop it, it would most certainly hurt them. The difference here is Rodeo provides all the entertainment, before, during and after. The people who spend the majority of the money there are not the ones who get tired of the show and leave, they stay and go to the Hideout until midnight, they stay and shop after the show, they are there early on weekends and stay the entire day with their families, so your assertions of rednecks and cowpies shows you definitely have no idea of the people that go to and are the target spender's of the rodeo. The simple fact of both ideas, is this: 1. the redevelopment idea and some people on here, that the probably overstated 3000 people that would stay there, in absolute best case scenario, totally filled up hotel with more than double occupancy. the claim that those people, who would go to rodeo anyways and spend some money, would now spend MORE money at the Show is ludacris, they would obviously spend some money at the hotel, food, drink, supplies, whatever, and would most certainly cause traffic headaches for the entire complex that have not been addressed. and they assume none of the far larger group of rodeo people would come in and spend a dime. 2. the Rodeo has 100,000 people a day through the turnstiles, they will have most certainly a large number of them want to go see the big new hotel and spend money there, this is the only obvious conclusion, thus stripping a very large number of dollars from the Show's charitable accounts. This means that in BOTH scenarios, Rodeo is losing money to the hotel they would have otherwise received, and in the only realistic scenario is the one where money is funneled to the hotel rather than the Rodeo's mission. How can you refute any of this by actually insinuating that no money would be lost, it's a significant amount. And before people keep talking about the Rodeo and how much they owe the Dome or other things there, need to remember that the Rodeo is the one keeping and has kept the Dome standing since the stadium was built, THEY are the ones footing most all the bills, THEY are the ones who paid millions to make up the difference on the Reliant Stadium cost overruns, the retractable roof, THEY are the ones who built and DONATED FREE OF CHARGE the AstroHall, AstroArena, and the huge warehouse on site that also houses the 365 day a year grounds operations and machine shops for the site. THEY are the only group who has been a tenant of the site since the Dome was built, THEY are then ones who have done more for that entire 300+ acres of county land than anyone else, so how can you simply discount their side as simply a few rednecks kicking around some cowpatties, that is just ignorant.

Ok, very easy, I thought this was already covered, but no one is saying that the very small percentage of guests that could actually stay there if it was totally booked wouldn't spend some money at rodeo, money they were coming in to town to spend anyways. It's the thousands of other people who AREN'T staying at the hotel who WOULD spend money at the hotel instead of at the concessions at Rodeo. And the thought of close to 2 million people over 20 days is too lucrative of a market to ignore, even though they try to when submitting their numbers. Being the new hotel, people will be clamoring all over to go in there and spend money, it would be devastating to the Rodeo's concessions. Now if the Dome was turned into a great new facility that anyone could use, people would be clamoring over each other to go in and spend money, or view events, and would want to bring their events there, concerts, conventions, and such, things the Hotel couldn't offer because it would be too busy housing and employing people who only clog up the traffic system there. And people who think that most hotel traffic arrives by foot, magic carpet or taxi are not simply living in reality. Go to hotels in Houston, especially for rodeo, they are almost always full parking lots, and small numbers of public transportation, because a large number of them are ranchers who either have kids showing animals, or are buying livestock, that is a large percentage of out of town guests at the Show. The Show, contrary to popular belief, is about far more than just tickets to concerts, the Livestock Show is the largest of it's kind with 24 hour operations for most of the entire show. How could a multi use facility not better serve the county taxpayers as a revenue generation AND increase the total value of every space out there. There could be some very nice hotel's built all around there, there's plenty of land where Astrodome was, still haven't heard much about that, or some of the other space's near the Dome, south of 610 there are lots, and there's plenty room for renovation all along South Main, and OST, and Kirby. Not to mention the old Raddison and Holiday Inn(not sure of current names) could be renovated/knocked down and rebuilt. I'm not in commercial real estate so I don't know that side of acquiring or what the market is like over there, but it would certainly be better than earmarking County convention/sports property for a private hotel that has a 50+ year lease on it.

Thank you Ricco, I appreciate the welcome, it is addictive. I have usually just trolled the board for info as the wealth of knowledge on here is great. But as I have read the 8 pages, as well as alot of misinformation out there in the "media" and such. I hate for one group to get bashed for things that simply aren't true. I would have to say that the group who is proposing the hotel has some pretty weak data, considering they admitted in their research they didn't account for any people from Rodeo or Texans games coming to their facilities. So I would say most of their points are suspect. I also don't think the county should lease away their valuable land for 50 years to anyone. The Rodeo is made up of people in this county that have proven they can get things done and do them right. As for the explanation to how they would take money directly out of the charity revenue. How can you say that when the hotel would obviously serve many more people than just simply sleep there? The people staying there won't spend hardly any money at the show other than what they have to see things, which we know to tickets to be only a portion, concessions and shopping are huge generators of charity revenue. The bars and restaurants of the hotel would draw many people, can't deny that, and they would spend money there, and how can you deny that every single dollar spent on food or drink there isn't taken away from the Rodeo?

Wouldn't a hotel near the site and an additional very updated convention venue be far more of an attraction? There's plenty room around the Dome that is available for development/redevelopment, the Park doesn't exist in a vaccuum, why wouldnt both support the greater goal, the "development" they are talking about bringing in would serve far more types that the current AstroArena would, and the Dome would, so it would be even more beneficial than a privately owned hotel on the site, blocking up things for everyone every time there's an event on the County owned portion. But you missed an important part of my post, why would Rodeo want to lose upwards of $14 million dollars of charitable revenue just so less than 1% of their guests could stay there? They would lose a significant amount of money, millions of dollars that would normally go to schools, teacher programs, scholarships, and other educational development programs.