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As expected, the newly created Harris County/Houston Sports Authority imposed the tax one week after it raised the local hotel tax by 2 percent, starting Oct. 1.

The rental car tax was set after board members got their first look at the latest design for a proposed retractable-roof baseball park the authority is expected to start building later this year.

Though a final price has not been determined, sports authority members and project architects promised it will come in at no more than $250 million and will be open April 1, 2000.

"We're still on track to do that," said David Greusel of the Kansas City architecture firm Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum.

The new taxes are allowed under a stadium financing law passed by the last Legislature to help Houston and other Texas locations build sports facilities and other civic projects.

The rental car industry opposed the legislation, saying it would be an unfair burden to the companies and their customers. The industry also said the legislation will cause Harris County to lose business.

The gross-revenues rental car tax will be imposed only on vehicles rented for 30 days or less, targeting visitors and not local residents who rent for longer periods.

Sports authority Chairman Jack Rains complained Wednesday that DeLoitte & Touche has not finished a market study to determine how much money the new taxes will generate.

While the authority is committed to provide $180 million of the cost of building the ballpark, there is concern that the new taxes won't raise enough to also construct both a new football facility and a basketball/hockey arena.

Expecting the tax revenues to begin coming in around the first of the year, the authority voted to borrow another $19 million from Southwest Bank of Texas to cover land acquisition and site cleanup.

The money will be repaid by the Sports Facilities Limited Partnership, a group organized by Enron Chairman Ken Lay to provide an interest-free loan to pay for the land.

Last week, the authority voted to borrow $16 million to pay expenses until the tax money comes in.

Wednesday, HOK architects Greusel and Earl Santee displayed new drawings of the stadium, which will have 42,000 seats, including 5,000 club seats, and 62 luxury suites.

The stadium will have a three-piece retractable roof that can be closed when it's too hot or raining and open in daytime so a natural grass field can get rain and sunshine.

The roof's left-field wall will be made of laminated glass to give fans on the first-base side a view of downtown when the top is closed.

Unlike the retractable roof on a new ballpark being built in Phoenix, the Houston roof will be out of sight when not in use, Santee said.

The roof will be moved using gantry-crane rail systems, such as are used at Houston's port to move supplies to and from ships. It will open in 12 minutes when the wind is below 35 mph.

HOK is making a prototype of the moving mechanism built in Minneapolis to make sure it will work.

While Astros officials had hoped the air conditioning could be used to cool spectators when the roof is open, Santee said that would be pointless, because the cold air would quickly be blown away.

Studies show that the stadium can be open 60 percent of the time, when the temperature is 85 degrees or lower at game time, Greusel said.

Though the final dimensions of the field are not known, it will have a short left-field fence - 317 feet at the foul pole - and a deep-centerfield fence at 430 feet. The right field will be of average dimensions, 325 feet at the foul pole.

The field will be 21 feet below street level, allowing fans to walk into a park along Crawford and view the games without buying tickets.

In the meantime, sports authority members want to consider acquiring a one- or two-block-wide buffer around the ballpark site for future uses, possibly profit-making ones.

"Our goal is to bring the net cost as low as possible to the taxpayers," Rains said.

Sports Authority member Billy Burge said he believes the land should only be acquired if extra space is needed for such facilities as a parking garage or an air-conditioning unit.

"We don't plan to use this for development," he said.

There is also talk about using the land for a Little League complex east of the ballpark and for a Metro transfer station, which could be needed as activity in the area increases.

There is some concern that the sports authority should not compete with the private sector in developing the land around it.

But by laying claim to the land now, the sports authority believes it can later buy it at current values rather than at inflated ones caused by the ballpark's construction.

Later this month, sports authority member Carol Garner will organize public hearings to gather citizens' views.