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About seven miles south of Casa Grande hulking mustard-colored domes rise up from the desert landscape like a scene from Star Wars\u2019 Tatooine.<\/p>\n
Built in 1982, they were meant to be the headquarters for an electronics manufacturer, but have since become a magnet for photographers, artists and hooligans.<\/p>\n
\u201cVirtually anyone who was raised in Casa Grande and went to high school or college here has partied out here,\u201d said Dan Peer, the property\u2019s owner.<\/p>\n
The domes might not be an icon much longer.<\/p>\n
Half of the largest dome\u00a0collapsed last year<\/a>. Pinal County asked the owner to have an engineer assess the domes’ safety or block them from public access. When he did not, the domes were condemned as unsafe, said spokesman Joe Pyritz in an email.<\/p>\n The owner is appealing the county\u2019s decision and will have a hearing with the Board of Supervisors at a future date.<\/p>\n Peer starts a tour of the domes with a disclaimer.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst comment is, you enter the grounds at your own risk.”<\/p>\n There\u2019s a no trespassing sign, but the barbed wire fence has been trampled down.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are holes. There are unfinished foundations. There is rebar sticking up. There\u2019s rocks, glass \u2014 you name it,” Peer said. “Don\u2019t trip. Don\u2019t get hurt. \u201d<\/p>\n The first dome was the closest to ever being finished. You can see the tiles where the bathroom would have been inside. Unlike the other structures, made of connected orb shapes, it\u2019s shaped more like a flying saucer.<\/p>\n Graffiti ranging from clumsy tags to elaborate images of faces and animals cover the walls.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have some good artists in the area, no doubt about that,\u201d Peer said as he gazed up at the walls.<\/p>\n A group of pigeons fly out of the domes as the tour continues.<\/p>\n The Travel Channel show\u00a0“Ghost Adventures” featured the domes<\/a>\u00a0in an episode last March.<\/p>\n \u201cThis may be one of the most unusual, yet sinister places we\u2019ve ever investigated in America,\u201d the host claimed.<\/p>\n There were rumors of satanic rituals practiced beneath the arching concrete ceilings.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were satanic signs they tell me, but I wouldn\u2019t even recognize them,\u201d Peer, who appeared in the show, said.<\/p>\n A man of God, Peer said when he purchased the property, they exorcised any otherworldly presence.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is not haunted and Satan is not welcome here anymore,\u201d Peer said.<\/p>\n The domes were\u00a0built in the 1980s\u00a0<\/a>as the headquarters for electronics manufacturer InterConn Technology.<\/p>\n Lonnie Mikkelsen was part of the construction crew and still lives in Casa Grande.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t have a clue what they were doing,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI said, \u2018Yeah, sign me on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019ve made a globe or pi\u00f1ata out of a balloon and papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9. The process to build the domes was like that, but in reverse.<\/p>\n First a giant balloon-like tarp was attached at the foundation. Fans inflated the balloon and workers built the dome from the inside, first spraying the sides with polyurethane foam, then concrete reinforced with metal fibers and added rebar.<\/p>\n Interconn went under before the domes were completed and the property has sat vacant for years.<\/p>\n A protective white layer covering the foam has peeled away and the foam turns mustard yellow in the sun. The domes\u2019 surface are pockmarked with handholds people use to climb to the top.<\/p>\n \u201cI would have liked to see them make it just because it was a unique type of construction,\u201d Mikkelsen said.<\/p>\n The company that built the domes on the other hand, still exists.<\/p>\n \u201cSo far we have constructed domes in every state in the union except one and in 52 foreign countries,\u201d said Gary Clark, sales vice president at the\u00a0Monolithic Dome Institute<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tarp used to build the largest Casa Grande dome structure was re-configured and formed to shape for\u00a0Monolithic\u2019s manufacturing facility in Italy, Texas<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s called\u00a0brucco<\/em>, the Italian word for caterpillar.<\/p>\n Clark said before the recession in 2008, the company was creating more than 100 new domes a year for everything from\u00a0schools<\/a>, private residences and churches.<\/p>\n Monolithic touts the domes’ weather resistance, insulation and ergonomics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very simple to say they are iconic,\u201d Clark said.<\/p>\n The Casa Grande domes may not be an icon for much longer. Peer pointed out cracks and holes in the domes as we walk through the cavernous space. Some are no wider than a hand, others you can walk through.<\/p>\n \u201cConcrete does have a tendency to crack anyhow, but none of these cracks are really structural,\u201d Peer said.<\/p>\n He believes vandals caused the destruction, including the collapse of the largest dome. The Pinal County Sheriff\u2019s Office reported there have been about 26 calls about the property since 2012 \u2014 76 percent for trespassing.<\/p>\n \u201cIs it really worth the trouble?\u201d<\/p>\n Peer said sometimes he wonders. The property is for sale and has been for years.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a million-dollar property in little better shape than it is now,\u201d Peer said. \u201cMaybe in quite a bit better shape than it is now.”<\/p>\n For now, Peer occasionally rents the property to filmmakers and photographers, but many people still visit the domes without permission.<\/p>\n On the day of the tour with Peer, Patrick McPherson and his buddy from Phoenix are also exploring the domes.<\/p>\n He\u2019s from South Carolina and read about the site online before visiting.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s just something nice about, I don’t know, how decrepit and real it is. It\u2019s honest.\u201d McPherson said. \u201cIt would be a shame to lose this, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n An\u00a0LA-based artist that goes by Boots<\/a>\u00a0stenciled her poetry on the domes walls. Boots became enamored with abandoned places after a break-up from an\u00a0 eight-year relationship.<\/p>\n \u201cThe domes, like other places I\u2019ve explored, have their bad and good graffiti,\u201d Boots said. \u201cThere\u2019s artists you recognize and then kids tagging how much they hate their parents.\u201d<\/p>\n Since she visited, several of her poems have been covered by spray paint.<\/p>\n \u201cThe domes are dreary, but have a sense of hope,\u201d Boots said. \u201cTheir oddness alone is appealing: random domes in the middle of the desert that have become a tourist attraction.\u201d<\/p>\n <3 Anna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Crumbling, Iconic, Haunted? Future Uncertain for Casa Grande Domes Written by Mariana Dale in June 2017 You can read the full article below or click here for the original post About seven miles south of Casa Grande hulking mustard-colored domes rise up from the desert landscape like a scene from Star Wars\u2019 Tatooine. Built in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Haunted Casa Grande Domes","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[73],"tags":[702,74,577,302],"class_list":["post-3188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haunted-house","tag-casa-grande-domes","tag-ghost","tag-haunted-house","tag-poltergeist"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Wkl2-Pq","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3188"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3192,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3188\/revisions\/3192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Abandoned, Broken, Haunted?<\/h3>\n
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