Sale of Rangers key to development of entertainment district
Three major groups with solid financial backing have expressed serious interest in the major league ballclub and “we’ll probably have something to announce in November or December,” Cluck said.
Rangers owner Tom Hicks said in May he was willing to sell all or part of the ballclub.
Delivering his state of the city address on Oct. 20, Cluck said sorting out the Rangers’ fate is important to the city’s continued development of the entertainment district.
The entertainment district is bound by Division Street on the south, Lamar Boulevard on the north, Stadium Drive on the east and Center Street on the west. It is home to Six Flags Over Texas theme park, the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Hurricane Harbor, Lincoln Square and the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. At one point the area was slated for a large multi-faceted $600 million development called Glorypark, which was backed by a group headed by Hicks. That development fell apart in May 2008. Cluck said any new development in the area may be more focused on entertainment than on retail like the Glorypark development.
Cluck said the opening of the new $1.2 billion Dallas Cowboys Stadium, as well as the improved Texas Rangers ticket sales, has helped Arlington avoid some of the worst aspects of the current recession.
“Our sales tax numbers are indeed down,” Cluck said. However, he noted, overall Arlington’s sales tax numbers remain one of the strongest in the state.
“I can tell you with confidence a lot of our sales tax success that we’re seeing currently can be directly attributed to the entertainment district, the opening of the Dallas Cowboys Stadium and the success the Texas Rangers had this year,” he said.
Those sales taxes helped the city balance its 2010 budget without “significantly touching city services,” he said.
“Many things are going right for the city of Arlington,” Cluck told the crowd at the meeting hosted at the Arlington Convention Center.
The mayor noted several new restaurants coming to the city, particularly in the Downtown area, and that the Dallas Cowboys Stadium has brought much more than just football games to the city.
“The stadium is bringing more than just seven games a year; it’s bringing events,” he said.
Hotels, he noted, are benefiting from those events, as is the Arlington Municipal Airport.
“We had 81 private jets that flew into Arlington Municipal Airport for the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game,” he said.
The city’s General Motors Corp. plant also has proven resilient in the recession, he said. While the plant shut down for two months, it is now working on overtime.
Cluck also singled out the University of Texas at Arlington and its quest for Tier One status as a research university.
“I see UTA becoming a Tier One university in 10 years,” he said.
However, he noted that Tarrant County College’s Arlington campus is in need of expansion and he hopes the TCC board will spend some funds to upgrade the Arlington campus.
The mayor noted also while plenty of large businesses in Arlington are doing well, such as the Arlington Highlands development, smaller businesses have been harder hit by the recession.
“The majority of businesses in Arlington are small business and they are impacted more by the recession than big businesses because they don’t have the same financial resources,” he said.
