Why is it important to save this building?

- There is a very strong emotional attachment to Memorial Coliseum – both from its dedication as a memorial to 400 casualties of World War II and from the memories created by 50 years of city, county and regional events held in the building.

- There are still viable options for adaptive reuse of Memorial Coliseum that would reanimate the bayfront while leaving the public green space around the building. We feel that alternative uses have not been sufficiently and apolitically explored.

- Adaptive reuse of an existing historical structure is environmentally sound and economically more frugal than starting from scratch. Adaptive reuse is recommended by the EPA Smart Growth initiatives and there are federal grants available for Smart Growth development.

- Memorial Coliseum has been recommended for listing on the National Register of Historic Places by the State Board of Review for the National Register. This designation opens the opportunity to receive federal grant money and tax rebates as well as the potential for generating tourism.

- Architectural tourism (traveling to visit buildings) is the fastest-growing segment of the multi-billion dollar annual tourist industry. Starting by promoting the famous architecture on our Bayfront – Richard Colley’s Coliseum, Philip Johnson’s Art Museum and Ricardo Legorreta’s museum addition – we could build “architourism” as a new facet of tourist interest.

- Demolition with no plan for what’s next is poor city policy. Downtown Corpus Christi is full of empty lots where nothing happened after demolition.

- In thinking about the sacrifices made and the lives lost, we offer this memorial poem:

The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak by Archibald MacLeish, (1892-1982, American Poet)

The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours, they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths: Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.