Come on, Atlanta, is the Georgia Dome really obsolete?

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Come on, Atlanta, is the Georgia Dome really obsolete?
February 21, 2011
Dwight Collins
Ocala.com

Take a good, long look at the Georgia Dome.

It's perfect for what it was built for, which was — chiefly — the Atlanta Falcons, and secondarily, big-time college football and basketball events, the Super Bowl, Olympic basketball and gymnastics, concerts and just about anything else you can name that attracts dozens of thousands of like-minded fans.

SEC fan bases have fallen in love with the place as much as supporters of the Falcons.

Take another quick look.

It's state of the art, less than 20 years old, and perhaps the home only to fledgling Georgia State University football, a not-yet Division I-A program which possesses a nicer stadium than tradition-dripping Georgia Tech.

That's if the Falcons have their way and somehow bamboozle Georgia taxpayers into helping fund a new stadium at a price of roughly $700 million.

The Falcons, you see, need an open-air stadium now, two decades after helping pull the plug on the open-air Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, which was home to more bad baseball and football than a venue should be allowed until the Braves paired John Smoltz with Tom Glavine.

The flash and dazzle of an “in his prime(time)” Deion Sanders helped the Falcons plop down a viable blueprint for a new dome as the Braves awaited the conclusion of the 1996 Summer Olympics to move into their new digs.

The Georgia Dome has had nothing but rave reviews since its doors opened in 1992. It's gorgeous, comfortable, and can be easily reached by shoes or shuttle from several high-rise downtown hotels.

It has everything you'd want in a stadium, except — according to the Falcons — exposure to late-summer Atlanta humidity and other weather elements, and it has 6,000 too many seats.

I'm certain a new home for the Atlanta Falcons would be as impressive, or might even raise the Georgia Dome bar that's in place. It's really amazing what $700 million can build in an era when construction workers are motivated and their bosses are finding new ways to trim away fat at contract time.

It's just unnecessary.

The Georgia Dome has a club level, executive suites, 72-degree weather. It has everything.

On the heels of Orlando's stunning new Amway Arena is the impending demolition of the old O-Rena, which hosted some lean years by the Magic, but also the only two NBA Finals they've ever participated in.

The house where post-HIV Magic Johnson remarkably won MVP honors in an NBA All-Star game will die at the age of 22.

That arena wasn't allowed time to build enough memories, and was left empty too soon.

You'll have fathers telling sons on future walks down West Amelia Street: “Son, that's where Nick Anderson earned his brick masonry certificate.” But there is no good way to explain how any major venue only lived for one generation.

No one will knock down the Georgia Dome anytime soon, but it shouldn't be discounted.

No wonder foreigners point too often to the fact we don't allow our structures to absorb history.

It's true.

How often do you hear of a BCS-level college football team building a new stadium? Minnesota, and who else?

They survive, and thrive.

And, to this day, I can show you places where Knute Rockne and Bear Bryant coached.