Forecast: Raining Stadiums

Three weeks after the arena proposal surfaced, Lanier and Eckels offered another equally vague bit of tidings: some unidentified wealthy Houstonians might be willing to come up with a couple of hundred million dollars for a different NFL team, which could play in a new Dome built next to the existing one at no public cost -- except, maybe, for a retractable roof.

Meanwhile, the Astros and their allies at the Greater Houston Partnership have launched their campaign to double last year's season-ticket sales. Those peppy radio, TV and billboard ads urge fans to "Step Up to the Plate" for the home team, but they avoid mentioning that the franchise is likely to be moved out of town if they don't. Nor do they note another likely condition to keep the Astros from fleeing, most recently voiced by National League president Leonard Coleman -- a brand-new, baseball-only stadium similar to the ones Baltimore and Cleveland have provided their teams.

The numbers for the football stadium had more flesh on their bones: $125 million for the bowl, which the Chronicle reported would be built "largely with private funds," and another $50 million to $85 million for the retractable roof, which would be the public's burden to bear. Slapping the new RetractoDome on the Astrodome grounds would save $100 million because of the "existing infrastructure."

Such specifics surely had a source, though Lanier hadn't responded to a request to divulge it at press time. In line with the bills for other new football stadiums around the country, the projected costs mirror reality more than the bizarro-world arena figure, though just what $100 million worth of infrastructure the new stadium would use is open to question. Perhaps the parking lot, the one not addressed in the downtown arena plan, though $100 million still seems a bit steep for a flat mass of asphalt.

A logical source for the data would be the Lanier-Eckels sports committee. After all, it's stocked with experts whose mission is to research those very details, then recommend a course of action. But before the committee has even gotten out of the gate, Lanier seems to be standing at the finish line.

Committee chair Peter Coneway acknowledges his group's function appears to have been usurped, but he says he understands Lanier has to move fast. "I'm not upset about it," Coneway says. "I think that the mayor realizes there's an opportunity here to take the initiative. It could be that we would have to put our stamp of approval on something after the fact. I don't know that, because it hasn't happened yet."

Still, Coneway has been working hard to accomplish the committee's goals, and he realizes that if Lanier is working out backroom deals, that work might be for naught. But he plans to forge ahead. "We're still gonna try to look overall at what's best," he says. "Our conclusions may or may not be consistent with what is negotiated in the interim, but sometimes that's just the way it works."

"Things come up," Coneway adds. "Life's not perfect.