Getting AT&T Stadium financing paid off 10 years early is good news by itself. Ken Perkins, who writes every month for our magazine, has all the details of that result in his story on page 20.
Let’s put that one event in context with the entirety of the development of Arlington’s premier sports and entertainment economy, the largest between the East and West coasts of our country.
Doing so is really a remarkable result set into motion when voters showed up in record numbers in 1991, providing a 65 percent approval of the plan to partner with the Texas Rangers Baseball Club to build The Ballpark in Arlington.
We will celebrate the 35th anniversary of that decision next year. To say much has happened since then may be the biggest understatement in our city’s history.
The city financed its portion of the cost to build the new home for the Rangers in the very same way as the city’s portion of the cost that was funded for the home of the Dallas Cowboys.
That was made possible because the debt on The Ballpark in Arlington was paid off in less than half the time it was first projected.
Sound familiar?
Arlington then became the first major city in Texas to cancel a sales tax – the one that was used to fund its portion of the cost to build The Ballpark – just as promised to those 1991 voters.
That also meant that the half-cent tax was available for something else voters would like to see for their city.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was watching how Arlington developed its partnership with the Rangers and decided he would see if he could do the same for “America’s Team.”
City leaders provided the answer he was looking for, but the final decision to do that would have to come with the approval of the city’s voters.
In November 2004, those voters, by a 55 percent majority, said yes and restored the half-cent sales tax to pay for half of the cost to build the new stadium.
They were told it would take until 2035 to pay off the new financing. As you now know, that event occurred last month, saving taxpayers $151 million.
Remarkably, all this would happen again when the Rangers wanted to provide their players and the team’s fans relief from the heat of Texas summers.
Globe Life Field was authorized by voters in November 2016, with another landslide margin of victory. That financing was set up for a 30-year term, but is now on track for a payoff in about 10 years, saving taxpayers another $200 million.
That makes three times voters have set into motion the development of what is now $5 billion of investment led by private entities that welcome 16 million visitors annually, creating the city’s largest economy.
The latest result is the opening, to national and international attention, of the National Medal of Honor Museum, all privately funded. Its decision makers cited the spirit of Arlington citizens when deciding where that world-class center of our country’s military history would be located.
It all started when Arlington accepted the challenge to continue as one of the nation’s few Major League cities when the Rangers needed a new home after old Arlington Stadium, authorized in a 1964 bond election, had reached the end of its economic life.
That resulted in other area cities imagining taking that privilege from us.
Arlington’s “can-do” spirit, seizing opportunities to ensure an abundant future, enhancing the lives of its citizens, and building upon its legendary civic pride prevailed.
The rewards of that decades-long progress keep on growing.
