San Antonio NOT Selected to Host Mens/Womens Final Four (through 2016)

[STLtoSA]

The Future of the dome is all about how many dates can it be used. The dome used alot more than people think. Through February there are 10 major events being held at the dome over 20 days. From the time that it takes to set up for some of these events there isn't any more room to fit in other events. These events over the next few months are going to bring tens of thousands of people to SA, and millions of dollars.

When UTSA fields a football team the stadium will get at least 5 more events per year. And if UTSA is smart they will try to schedule a Texas, Texas A&M, or Tech for some home and home series.

The dome is not going to come down any time soon. Anyone who suggests that the land can be sold to developers is also wrong. The reason the dome was built there is because the land is an environmental disaster. The city spent millions of dollars to do enough cleanup to build the dome, but the site wasn't completely cleaned. No one knows how bad the environmetal damages the old foundry left on the land is, but it is bad enough to make it unsuitable, or better yet, a bad site for development.

San Antonio will probably never get an NFL franchise. It had some chances in the past, but by building a sub par (in terms of suites mainly) stadium (to NFL standards) and the fact that SA is Cowboys country, it will never happen.

St. Louis like SA built a domed stadium in the 90's that would be part of the convention center. And like SA would hopefully lure a football team to the city. One of the major differences was that SA built a dome not ready for an NFL team and STL did. Of course, there are other factors that helped STL, like a substantialy bigger metro area and a NFL history, but the main reason franchises move is because of money (stadiums).

The City has moved away from hoping that the dome will be used to lure an NFL team, and is maximizing the opperability of the stadium. SA is not out of the running, it will still get at least a regional and maybe a preliminary round event also. The Alamo dome is not a lost cause and never has been. It is an important asset of the City of San Antonio.

__________________________________________________

I do have a correction from earlier. The last improvements made to the dome included adding 14 luxury suites raising the total to 52.

__________________________________________________

"SA is out of the running. And that is OK. We don’t need college basketball to make us great. We need infrastructure, progressive living, integrated neighborhoods, and a higher quality of life. Want to keep companies like AT&T? How about a more dynamic lifestyle? Maybe better public transport? Maybe a real urban fabric? Maybe a young, creative class that is drawn to a city and therefore draws employers yearning for a young creative class…" sakyle

I agree with this statement 100%. In SA this is such an up hill battle. People like Richard Milk in community development have done great things in planningand attracting the kind of developments and quality of life that you speak of. The problem is that the city is run by developers, and they don't care about quality of life and urban fabric if it is going to affect their bottom dollar. We at the city and the state of Texas have some of the worst development codes and property laws in the country.

But none of this has anything to do with the dome.

_________________________________________________________________________

Some Statements:

-"It has generated $450 million in spending since it was built," said Michael Abingdon, director of the Alamodome. "That's nothing to sneeze at." The total cost to build it was $186 million. (2005)

-When asked why the NCAA did snub the Alamo City, Slive said the size of the Alamodome wasn't a factor. But with the Final Four moving to a larger arena configuration that allows more seats to be sold, Slive said the six-year-old Reliant Stadium — which has more than 100 more luxury suites than the Alamodome and can seat at least 5,000 more fans — was one of Houston's strongest selling points.

-"The Dallas Cowboys' new billion-dollar stadium in Arlington might be able to squeeze as many as 100,000 fans into a basketball configuration. The proposed Alamodome setup would have held between 65,000 and 70,000." Mike Finger article(Dallas' new stadium's capacity far exceeds all other possible host cities)