Dieseldrvr

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.

Correction to you, the HLSR DOES rent the entire grounds, from corner to corner, for 2 months out of the year, not just the nights it puts on the show. There are over 18,000 committeepersons who work on average over 60 hours to put things on. They are the biggest tenant of the entire place, and the place you love over there would probably not exist had it not been for HLSR and the people involved with it. and the hotel they are proposing would NEVER bring in as much money to the city as the Rodeo brings in during it's 2 month stay there, so I would say they have a bigger voice in what happens there, rather than an out of town group that is proposing something that would put the county in a very precarious legal position, considering the far most major 2 tenants are both against this terrible proposal. The hotel would cost the taxpayers money to reimburse the HLSR for the estimated 14 million plus that they are going to lose in revenue, along with some crazy ramp they will have to build to get people and employees into and out of this debacle, or they can have a venue that would benefit the area and bring more events to Houston for the citizens, and make money off of the HLSR to pay for the rent, oh, and have a total renovation at virtually no cost to the taxpayers. Hmm, which is the fiscally smarter and more responsible scenario? And I hate to tell you, but the conventions are going to Reliant Center no matter if there's a hotel there or not, and not one of them brings as much money to the city that HLSR does, so again, you don't allow a small group to rule the facilities of the majority. When you face it, the Rodeo is the big fish here.

The only problem with what you all are saying about this "Barn"?? Where did anyone get that idea, the Chron, a "News"paper, didn't do their homework. The rodeo said they would use the facility they built it into as a replacement for AstroArena, not a barn. The Chron and readers came up with that conclusion. It would be no more a year round barn than Reliant Center is, or the AstroArena, both of which are basically "barn"s during the Show too, but no one complains about them year round. Their plan of a replacement for the astroarena would include ways to make the structure do as much as or more than the Arena, which handles many concerts, small conventions, the WNBA Comet's games as of 2008, Gymnastics national tournaments, and many other events. So I can't see why another space that is more updated than the quite old and outdated Arena wouldn't be great, and it would keep the Dome's purpose of an event place. And it would not violate contracts and agreements longstanding and beneficial to the county. And anyone complaining about the cost of the Dome and why don't the Rodeo and Texans pay for it, they are. The Rodeo alone brings in 10 million to the County in just rental of the property and some concession licenses, so the estimated 2 million a year in lights and mothballs is more than made up in the 2 months a year the Rodeo occupies the site.

I'm not sure what your problem is with the charity in town that brings in more money to the city than a Superbowl, EVERY year. The Hotel is 1300 rooms, so wouldn't serve Texans who sell out every game, or Rodeo, who handles close to 100,000 people every day, for much use except to take millions away from the charity that gives out scholarships to thousands of Texas and Houston students every year. Why would a single purpose facility be the way to go. Why wouldn't a multipurpose facility better serve the needs of the site, which is all multipurpose? The Rodeo I believe is putting up their own proposal to renovate the Dome into a multiuse facility that could replace the AstroArena, thus consolidating more the facilities, and providing more parking, sounds like a great idea to me. The Rodeo has already proved they could do it, considering they built and donated the AstroHall, the AstroArena, and the huge warehouse on the site to the County.

Haha, I agree, I too have a corner lot in Walnut Bend. The problem is the bass pumping is from the security guard, isn't that great?

I would agree with you guys, 10 miles due west of downtown Houston is in the grand scheme of things, basically in the "centre" of town. When the city is as big as Houston is, it's not too far off that's for sure, especially when you take into account how established the area is and how much expansion there is west of it.

Well, I don't have much info, but I am new to the Walnut Bend neighborhood, Sec 7, so I'm looking forward to the same things, maybe a good barber shop, and a bar. I have heard that Palazzo's is opening a location there. It came through second hand source, but this seems like a good location for them, and they have great food. I wouldn't mind a good breakfast place too. If anyone else has any ideas of what's going in there, please post for us who live there, thanks.