Spurs Set To Forget The Alamo Dome Plays Host To Stars, But Nba Club Wants To Leave

The cavernous Alamodome has played host to the Dallas Cowboys, the Rolling Stones and tractor pulls. Now it’s ready to host basketball’s biggest showcase of talent, just as its regular basketball tenant is trying desperately to leave the building.

The $186 million indoor stadium opened in May 1993 with a Texas-sized celebration and promises of big sports events to come. Without a doubt, the NBA All-Star Game Feb. 11 was one of those major events dome designers envisioned.

A pet project of former Mayor Henry Cisneros, now secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the dome actually has an angular look.

Its interior has no view-obstructing columns. Its roof is suspended by cables, which are connected to four tall posts protruding from the top of the 18-acre building.

Its unique appearance has prompted some dome visitors to say the building looks like a ship sailing at sea or an upside-down armadillo.

The entire dome site covers 57 acres on the edge of downtown near the San Antonio Convention Center.

In 1989 Cisneros pushed for and narrowly won passage of a five-year, half-cent transit sales tax to finance the dome. Today the cityowned building is debt-free and turning a profit sooner than projected.

Just how suitable the Alamodome is for basketball and whether the Spurs will continue to play there has been the subject of local debate.

When the Alamodome is configured for regular Spurs games, it holds 20,662. For some Spurs games - as for the All-Star Game - upper-level seating is opened for a basketball capacity of 35,888.

The Spurs moved into the Alamodome before the 1993-94 season with a 10-year lease. The Spurs previously had played in HemisFair Arena, a nearby stadium now being demolished.

Spurs executives who have come on board since the move to the Alamodome note the giant stadium was designed for football. They point out other NBA teams have abandoned domed stadiums and that San Antonio is the only team playing in one without a plan for moving to a smaller basketball arena.

“There hasn’t been a situation in which a basketball team has been able to operate in a football stadium,” said Spurs president Jack Diller.

Luxury suites and club seats - big revenue producers for a basketball franchise - are located too high and too far away from the basketball court in a stadium designed for football, Diller said.

In order to meet mounting expenses, Diller said, the team needs a way to improve revenues. That means a more intimate setting with desirable luxury suites and club seats, he said.

The Spurs franchise last season made about $4 million largely because San Antonio advanced to the Western Conference finals.

This season the team is expecting to lose between $3 million and $3.5 million in the regular season, Diller said. Again, postseason play will help determine the season’s financial results.

Last summer Spurs chairman Robert McDermott stirred controversy when he said the team needed a new basketball arena or it might leave the city.

At the urging of Mayor Bill Thornton, Spurs executives are holding private talks with city officials to “examine every possible way that you could reconfigure seating or add amenities or do anything that would make it possible for us to stay here,” Diller said.

Though the Spurs are the dome’s anchor tenant, the building is used for other events when the team isn’t playing.

The stadium has been the venue for major concerts, trade shows and conventions as well as preseason Dallas Cowboys and Houston Oilers games, Canadian Football League games and college football games.

The 1995 Alamo Bowl pitting Texas A&M against Michigan drew a capacity crowd of 64,597.

Next year the dome will host a men’s regional final of the 1997 NCAA Basketball Tournament before hosting the 1998 NCAA Final Four.