THE Super Dome : While Other Indoor Stadiums Bow to Time, the Superdome Manages To Stay Current

Twenty-one years after it opened, 45,000 tourist annually line up to wander open-mouthed through the 10-acre Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans. If they’re still goggle-eyed over the huge arena, so are the people who book it for everything from home shows to dirt-bike races to the Super Bowl.

These days it’s not just the size of the stadium that sparks amazement. It’s the fact that it’s held up so well while other domed stadiums are losing teams and considered obsolete.

“I think it’s an unbelievable facility,” said Jim Steeg, executive director of special events for the NFL, which selected it for this year’s Super Bowl. “The only domed stadium that can compete with it now is the Georgia Dome, which opened in what, 1992?”

In fact, both the domed stadiums that opened about the same time as the Superdome, the Kingdome in Seattle and the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., are facing major problems, including losing the sports franchises that are their main tenants.

The Detroit Lions plan to move into a new stadium in downtown Detroit. They began planning to leave Silverdome, where they moved 21 years ago, after contract negotiations with Pontiac and Silverdome officials broke off.

The Lions, who get no revenue from the stadium, said they needed a better deal. Twenty-eight of the NFL’s teams share in at least a portion of advertising, concession sales, luxury suite rentals or parking from their facilities.

The Kingdome’s future is uncertain. The Seattle Mariners are getting a new outdoor baseball stadium that is to open in 1999. The Seattle Seahawks want a new football stadium and propose tearing down the Kingdome and building on its site. The major complaint of both teams is that they can’t build the luxury boxes they need to make money.

The New Orleans Saints’ contract with the Superdome runs until 2018. The Saints received a number of perks from the Superdome when they signed the contract, including money from concessions and parking and the right to build more luxury suites. The Superdome, which had 64 suites when it first opened in 1975, now has 137.

The facility spends over $2 million annually on renewal and replacement in the building. In addition, major renovation projects over the years have improved both the technical aspects and the comfort level of the dome.

A $22.8 million project completed for the Super Bowl has remodeled locker rooms, installed a new sound system, new entrance lobby and ticket offices, upgraded safety equipment and added new concourses and bathrooms for the 30,000 seats in the upper reaches of the Dome.

“This facility is probably in better condition to accommodate major events than when it opened its doors in 1975,” said Glenn Mon, general manager of the Superdome.

Before the dome was built for $163 million, critics filed lawsuits and some state lawmakers tried to block the project, claiming it would never pay for itself. In fact, the facility has operated in the black for the past two years, with revenues exceeding operating costs, according to figures released by the management group. Construction bonds and improvements were funded by hotel-motel tax at no cost to local taxpayers.

The economic impact of this year’s Sugar Bowl and Super Bowl are expected to exceed the original construction cost of the Dome.

“You see a lot of stadiums that have a 20-, 30-year shelf-life and become outdated. Not the Superdome,” said Bill Curl, director of public relations for the Superdome. “We can look eyeball to eyeball with any multipurpose stadium in the world--built or planned. You won’t find one that’s ahead of us in state of the art equipment, and you won’t in 20 or 30 years.”