Today is deflation day for the 24-year-old RCA Dome. Former Mayor Bill Hudnut is scheduled to begin letting
the air out at 10:30 a.m. The stadium was built for $82 million and completed in 1984 to entice the Baltimore Colts to move
to Indianapolis. It hosted the Colts, four Final Fours, the NBA All-Star Game and hundreds of other events during its short
lifespan. The dome's 257-ton roof should take about 30 minutes to sink, with the rest of the demolition lasting several weeks.
What are your RCA Dome memories? Will you miss it?
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Welcome to Property Lines, Indy's source for neighborhood real estate news. Your host is Scott Olson, IBJ's real estate beat
reporter. Edited by Cory Schouten.
Today is deflation day for the 24-year-old RCA Dome. Former Mayor Bill Hudnut is scheduled to begin letting
the air out at 10:30 a.m. The stadium was built for $82 million and completed in 1984 to entice the Baltimore Colts to move
to Indianapolis. It hosted the Colts, four Final Fours, the NBA All-Star Game and hundreds of other events during its short
lifespan. The dome's 257-ton roof should take about 30 minutes to sink, with the rest of the demolition lasting several weeks.
What are your RCA Dome memories? Will you miss it?
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In my opinion the estridge companies are crooks. They filed bankruptcy on their 'track housing' side of the business two weeks before they closed on one of my clients' homes. When my client first interviewed Estridge as a builder 6 months before, they specifically ASKED about the solvency of their business, knowing that some builders were struggling. Estridge truly misrepresented their financial situation at that time. I suppose I am more unhappy with the whole system than I am with the builder because what the heck==you can file bankruptcy on 'track homes' but still keep building and make money off of 'custom built' homes??? How ridiculous! They are all homes. How can a company be allowed to bilk thousands of dollars from their subcontractors but still be allowed to build houses?? they should have been made to pay back all their unpaid contractors before being allowed to profit from building any more houses! This alone makes them and the system crooks in my eyes. I would never build an estridge home and I would not recommend for my clients either. If they were truly 'bankrupt' how could they afford to keep building homes anyway??? The whole system needs fixed.
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I live a couple blocks east of the Angie's campus and my house is assessed for ~$160,000. If I could get that amount, let alone $384,000 (a 140% bonus), I'd sell in a minute. Either Angie's stockholders just got fleeced, or Angie's is getting about a 58% discount on their property taxes, if these properties are actually worth what they paid Mr. Oesterle for them. Which do you think is the case?
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Perhaps the IMA board is really to blame! They agreed to hire Charles. They can't seemingly find donors among themselves, or bring in new blood that will support the museums operating budget with an expanded museum and money to provide curators with something to do (ie buy art). The headlines of disarray at the museum and mass firings are hurting the reputation of the museum for some time to come. If people on the board had misgivings, perhaps they shpuld have more forcefully opposed efforts that they have seemingly been unable to fund, like expansion and the costs it has created!
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See, I told u Indyman and Dipsicle....this 8 days is overkill. It's barely worth a weekend....great job Tony George! Your dream has been fulfilled....he fans want the I r l back. Thats how good it was.....and that sucked.
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I have been in training for a short time now but right off I can see that safety and quality are the number one issues, my experience as of late has been a positive one, the employees along with Jeff the plant manager and the operation supervisor as well as the engineers are a highly motivated group of people, what an asset for the area to have and for company's in need of a quality metal products.
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It played a significant role in economic development...not because of the football team but because of the event capability that brought Final Fours, the fire equipment show, and numerous huge conferences and conventions that filled hotels and restaurants and Circle Center with patrons.
A man searching for a life.
They finished building the dome while I was in high school. I went down there to welcome the Colts to Indianapolis from Baltimore during that year. I also went to Springsteen's Born in the USA concert in the dome. Fun time! I too will miss the dome but am looking forward to what our new stadium can offer the city, especially as a host to our first Super Bowl game.
I was only ever in the Dome about twice. Once for a pre season Colts game that I had free tickets for and for the Metallica concert years and years ago. Neither event was particularly enjoyable to me and I don't really have any fond memories from inside it, but I will miss it's puffy top in our skyline. It seems a shame and an incredible waste that it only lasted 24 years. I feel badly for the people who worked on it, from design to construction. How do they feel about it? I'm sure they all envisioned it lasting much longer than it did.
Peyton says, Sports are shot on Sony Cameras so why not watch it on one.
Dustin says, I don't really like Sports.
The San Diego Chicken prepares to jump over the table to go try to rip him apart, but Peyton holds him back.
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Ignore those that try to diminish the overwhelming impact the RCA Dome has had on Indy's legacy, both past and future.
It put us on the national stage as a Pro city and launched our strong ties to the Sports industry and allowed us to be one of the national leaders in Sports Tourism.
Without the RCA Dome:
No Colts
No Final Fours
No NCAA HQ relocation
No National Spotlight
No 2012 Super Bowl
No Lucas Oil Stadium
No NFL Combine
No Large-Venue Conventions
Subtract a few downtown hotels
Subtract a few hundred thousand annual visitors
Subtract countless millions of dollars from the Downtown economy
Boring Sundays
No Circle City Classic/State Championship Venue/ Nat'lBand Comps
A diminished sense of Local Pride
No Super Bowl Championship Memories (And AFC Thriller from '07)
...
The RCA Dome has helped transform Indy for everyone... even the non-sports fans... EVERYONE. It has paid for itself likely 5 times over and it is scary to think what Downtown Indy would have been without it.
As for my RCA Dome memories, I didn't think that I would miss the dome since it's so plain-Jane, vanilla and ordinary with narrow concourses and no flair. But it turns out I am going to miss it's intimate feel and the noise that we could generate because of it's compact seating arrangement. How many false start penalties did we the fans cause? How many bad plays did the opposing teams have to run because they simply could not audible out of them? In the new mega-stadium even with the roof closed the other teams offense has no problem changing the play at the line of scrimmage no matter how loud we try to get because the noise dissipates in all of those thousands of extra cubic feet of space.
By the way I've been to four games in my (L)ucas (O)il (S)tadium (S)eat and that's all that I've seen. Bad name karma.
* My first Colts game back in '87 or '88. All I remember is it was against the Redskins and they got their asses kicked, but I had a great time up in those bleacher seats.
*ISSMA State Marching Band Finals, '95, '93, '92 and '91. NOTHING will make me forget the feeling marching out of the tunnel and onto the field for the first time as an 8th grader in 1991. It was mind blowingly awesome and for a rural Indiana, Tipton county kid was an amazing experience.
*Various colts games the last few years, sadly NOT the AFC Championship Game win, though. :(
Won't you likely be dead in 2090?
Many thanks to all those involved in making the Dome possible and for all of the great events that have occurred as noted by CreamCrimson.
It has made our city proud.
And, CreamCrimson, how can you think that if the dome isn't built that this City doesn't prosper? Maybe the dome would've been replaced by something that made Indy mor prosprous? That is a slippery slope on which you're treading.
No point in arguing thought that it served its purpose -- I just wish too that something soo expensive and lavish at the time would've outlive 24 short years. That's $3.4 million a year, btw. Not including the extra tax that never disappeared.
It died before many of us who say the roof raised. What makes you think the Luke won't meet the same fate?
By the way, my posting at 2 in the morning shows no obvious indication that I have no life. Think about this... It might mean that I have a busy career that requires me to do tasks during my waking hours, so therefore, you probably have no life or even your life is nothing to brag about. I could be just as ignorant as you... You work in a factory, you are part of the 'bluecollar' driven economy Indiana relies on.
Why should anyone have sad memories of the dome in the first place? The dome is still not paid for and the city's taxpayers are still paying for something that will no longer be there. To me, that's silly. Why should anyone pay money to see a game? Silly idea to think a team's win or loss personally affects the fans' feelings. If a team lost, get over it, life is not crashing down on ya. If a team won, will fans be treated like royalty the players do? Nah, because they are nobodies, the players are million dollar earners, so this is why I don't care about pro sports, it's a silly waste of money.
Have a good day!
Back on topic... I never ventured into the RCA dome, but I always thought it was a brilliant structure. It was an elegant solution to a difficult design problem. Of course, it may have been approaching functional obsolescence. Most NFL team owners demand a stadium that offers a higher percentage of premium spaces like luxury boxes. No mayor wants to refuse their demands and risk losing the team, it's much better for their legacy to build a new stadium.
I think it made more sense in the very beginning to build a newer stadium because I had already known that RCA Dome was swelling at the seams. I also know that enlarging the convention center is another good move which will in turn create more expos and the like.
Great post, that's what we like to see. Next time, leave the junk in your trunk.
I'd been to several games and events over the years. It was hardly a homey place, so getting warm and gushy about the dome is hard to do. Over the years though, as I visited from out of town, it improved -- not the structure so much, as the vibe; less a result of the building, more about the crowd -- they actually evolved into true-blue football fans. The place was still sterile, but definitely more fun!
What WAS good? I loved the main entrance on the NE side. The stairways, and the oh-so easy access to downtown and St. John's, literally at your feet. Actually, that entrance was the only architectural highlight -- it also tied into the city.
Worst of it? The public areas were too small and claustrophobic. A full house meant packed walkways, stairs, restroom and concession lines--pretty miserable.