Missed this from last week:
As county officials and the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo haggle over how best to make use of the Houston Astrodome, a new group has emerged with a novel idea. They want to turn the 8th Wonder of the World into a world-class movie studio.
“It’s absolutely the least amount of change to this historical structure that you could possibly do and give it a new lease on life,” said film and TV veteran Cynthia Neely. “Texas really needs a large-scale production facility, and I mean large, to be competitive.”
[…]
The idea to convert the Astrodome is similar to one in Austin where the city helped turn the old Mueller Airport hangers into a cutting edge studio. Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez filmed portions of “Grindhouse” at the Austin studio.
The subject first came up in May; there isn’t anything new in this story, so I can’t say if the concept has advanced any since then. Like I said then, I don’t have any particular preference among the various save-the-Dome schemes. As long as it’s private money being put up, and the County is off the hook, it’s all good by me. Let all the interested parties make their pitches, and may the best one win. Link via Houstonist.
I think a County subsidy is not out of line if it brings a whole new industry to town.