I posted this a bit earlier,but it mysterously disappeared!
I saw on the tv news that the King Dome in Seattle was “Imploded”.
Why?
Carl
Carl
They have finished construction of Safeco Field, the new home for the Mariners, which has a retractable roof, so it can be either open-air or enclosed. Yay. The Seahawks are getting a new Stadium of their own, too.
(Washinton’s tax dollars hard at work…)
Structurally, I don’t think there was anything major wrong with the King Dome except for some falling ceiling tiles which could have been easliy replaced. The darn thing was Built To Last a thousand years. But… since we live in a disposable society, the powers that be decided that it needed to go.
Actually, I haven’t lived in this area for long, so I don’t know all of the motivations behind the decision to destroy the King Dome, but I personally feel that imploding the structure is a serious waste. I know a lot of people who have grown up here who feel a great loss, for a major landmark of their whole life has been thrown away. Kind of sad.
And just my humble opinion, but the new home of the Mariners, Safeco Field? It’s an eyesore. It looks unfinished, and it’s just plain ugly. The Dome, at least, had a little character.
Chrome Toaster
All domes should be imploded. There’s something evil about attending a baseball game indoors.
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”
Greed.
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The Kingdome was not easily modified to accomodate the large number of high-rent personal suites that these thieves now like to have in their corporate welfare projects.
Tom~
Other than the fact that it wasn’t named after a major corporation.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, pee in it, and serve it to the people that piss you off.
Here’s a few stories from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Seattle Times and the Seattle Journal of Commerce
Apparently, Seattle still owes about $125 million on the Kingdome. I wonder what the lien-holders think about their assets being blown up. And how the hell can they owe $125 million on a structure that only cost $67 million to begin with? I guess no on made any payments in the Dome’s 24 year existence.
The falling ceiling tiles were a symptom of larger problems with the ceiling which were, in fact, repaired at great expense (i.e., more than the original cost of the dome).
The other posters have correctly described the reasons for destroying a perfectly serviceable stadium and replacing it with two (count 'em, two) others at a cost of billions of dollars. These costs are borne primarily by taxpayers in Washington State, even taxpayers in far-off Spokane who do not attend Seahawks or Mariners games, and, if they did, they would be subject to the hotel/motel and car rental taxes added to pay for, you guessed it, the new stadia.
And for those of you who still believe that we live in a democracy, both facilities were voted down by angry citizens who were willing to let their “beloved” sports teams walk rather than submit to corporate blackmail only to be re-instated by state and local politicians who could “see farther” than the hoi polloi.
According to the local news the remaining debt on the Kingdome will not be retired until 2016.
Beacuse Baseball and Football are ment to be played outdoors.And, as Richie Allen once said “If a horse can’t eat it, I don’t want to play on it”.