Jan. 22, 2005 - HOUSTON -- Long an icon of the innovative spirit and sports passion of Texas' biggest city, the Astrodome has become a problem. What do you do with the world's first air-conditioned stadium after it's been replaced by newer facilities?

After football's Oilers left in 1996, baseball's Astros in 2000 and Rodeo Houston in 2003, notions have included making it a casino, a ski slope, a parking garage or a transit center. One dreamer envisioned a whole neighborhood inside, its chief attraction being clean air. Now the Harris County Sports & Convention Corp. is negotiating with an organization that proposes turning the Dome into a 1,000-room convention hotel.

The Astrodome Redevelopment Corp. is the same group that responded to Harris County's request for proposals two years ago.

"At that time, their proposal basically centered on a space-related theme park, with some ... hotel rooms, movie theaters, restaurants and some retail space," said Willie Loston, the convention bureau's executive director.

Preliminary studies have pushed ARC away from a theme park and toward a meeting center and hotel, but Mr. Loston said it's "speculative at this point." The group has some "strong partners" but is still working to prove its concept and its capability, he said.

Cost estimates exceed $200 million, and some county officials have raised the possibility of a public contribution to save the historic Dome. But Mr. Loston wants an all-private venture with "not one dime" of public money invested.

If it ripens, the plan likely will set off a battle between Harris County, which owns the Astrodome complex, and the city of Houston, which has its own convention center and 1,200-room convention hotel downtown, seven miles north of the Dome.

Still, the county eventually will have to do something. The faded, 40-year-old Astrodome has been replaced by downtown's Minute Maid Park, home of the Astros since 2000, and Reliant Stadium, home of the NFL's Houston Texans since 2002. Reliant, built next to the Dome, has taken all its events, including the rodeo.

It costs $1.5 million to keep the Astrodome usable, most recently for high school playoff games. It would cost $600,000 a year just to mothball it. Taxpayers still owe about $50 million for Dome renovations in the 1980s and, so far, no one has talked seriously about demolishing what many still see as an asset.

But no one talked seriously about new baseball and football stadiums until Oilers owner Bud Adams told Houston it was time and hit the city with a symbolic two-by-four by moving his team to Nashville, Tenn.

WHAT OTHERS HAVE DONE

TEXAS STADIUM, IRVING: City officials are looking at their options for when the Cowboys say adios in 2009 for a new stadium in Arlington. The leading possibility may be demolition and redevelopment of the valuable real estate where the old stadium sits.

COMPAQ CENTER, HOUSTON: The Houston Rockets' old home has been turned into a church.

REUNION ARENA, DALLAS: The city-owned former home of Dallas' Stars and Mavericks sits empty most days, save high school graduations, monster truck-o-ramas and the like.

SILVERDOME, PONTIAC, MICH.: When the Detroit Lions moved to a new downtown stadium in 2002, officials in suburban Pontiac got creative. The Silverdome is used for drive-in movies and inline skating, as well as the requisite graduations and monster trucks.

TIGER STADIUM, DETROIT: Since the Tigers moved to Comerica Park in 2000, the historic old park has sat empty except for the occasional minor-league exhibition and movie shoot. It could be doomed for demolition unless nostalgic fans somehow have their way.

THE KINGDOME, SEATTLE: The old home of the Seahawks and Mariners was imploded in 2000.

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