Why Birmingham's domed stadium should be spelled with two 'O's

Yesterday was a historic day for the city of Birmingham.

The eight member Birmingham City Council voted 6-1 to go forward with the building of the proposed dome stadium in downtown Birmingham to be a part of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.

The project will receive $666,000 a month (an omen in its own right, if you ask me) from the city of Birmingham, rounding out to around $8 million a year. The completion is expected to happen within the next five years with a groundbreaking ceremony next Tuesday at 5 pm.

Sure, the election part of this project is historic considering the city of Birmingham has been trying for years to secure the building of a dome (remember MAPS, Birmingham natives?). However, here is what will truly make this day historic: completing the project, and there is no reason to expect this to happen.

For starters, Jefferson County cannot be expected to help out in any way. The county is in huge debt still from their sewer problems and are leaning more towards bankruptcy than someone bailing the city out.

Second, does anyone remember the Birmingham Entertainment District that was promised to the city?

Yea, back in 2007, the city signed on with Performa Entertainment, Inc. from Memphis, TN to build up the area. The district was suppose to have shops, hotels and nightlife spots. Even an SEC Store was proposed to fill the area.

Performa supposedly had 60% of the shops and locations filled as well as having the financing in place.

The group was suppose to have all finances in place by March 2008 when construction could begin on "The Forge."

John Elkington, the man from Performa who has headed the project for Birmingham, was so confident last summer, even though groundbreaking was three months late, that the district was going to get built within a year that he gave out countdown clocks to the BJCC board.

His clock now says 16 days to completion.

His contract has been cancelled.

We are still waiting for ground to be broken.

Despite this failure, mayor Larry Langford believes whole-heartedly this project will be a success and says there is interest from the MLS to potentially move a franchise here.

The dome is slated to have 57,000 seats and can be expanded up to 70,000, an extensive size for a soccer team in the United States. Sure, the Seattle and New England franchises play in their respective city's NFL stadium, but only open part of the venue for seating.

That is just the first problem for a proposed soccer franchise.

Out of the 18 franchises who will be a part of the MLS in 2011, only seven will be playing on FieldTurf, the expected surface of the dome, and none of the franchises play in a closed-air facility. Vancouver's team will be playing in a dome, but with a retractable roof.

IF the city of Birmingham can overcome that obstacle, they will have to face the most formidable of their opponents: Interest.

I have said before that if Hoover built a 20-25 thousand seat stadium and drew a MLS team, it could thrive, but can the city of Birmingham bring in the families from suburbia to watch soccer?

Hardly anyone ventures near Legion Field anymore, partly because of the surroundings of the stadium. The proposed site of the dome isn't much better, but individual investors are trying to revive downtown.

Even if Birmingham can miraculously overcome all of those obstacles, it will be hard to view this structure as anything but a money pit.

Not only will the structure be competing with the complex it is attached to, but just think of what would be in the dome.

The city of Birmingham only has one sports team: the Birmingham Barons, and baseball isn't going in that dome.

Say the city does get an MLS team, they play about 17 homes games, plus about three exhibitions, so an MLS team will occupy 20 days.

Add PapaJohns.com Bowl, SWAC Championship, and Magic City Classic for a total of 23.

UAB football for six days puts the total at 29.

Throw in six concerts booked at the BJCC Arena over the next ten months that could potentially need the dome and it goes to 35.

Just for entertainment purposes, we will say either the OVC, C-USA, or SEC will use the dome for their conference basketball tournament, and say it lasts five days, so that puts the total day use at 40 days out of the year. Generously.

Take away the MLS franchise, and the dome is being used once every two and a half weeks.

Larry Langford has always said, whether its concerning the Olympics or any other project, "Why not Birmingham?"

If you need a reason, just pick something from above.