The City of Arlington approved an $810 million expansion of its Entertainment District located by the city’s two professional sports stadiums. The project will be anchored by an 888-room Loews Arlington Hotel and a new Arlington Convention Center.

The expansion is part of a public-private partnership between the City of Arlington, the Texas Rangers, Loews Hotels & Co, and The Cordish Companies, according to a statement. The new development will include a coworking and incubator space called Spark to support the North Texas entrepreneurial community.

The $810 million expansion project includes:

• A $550 million, 888-room Loews Arlington Hotel complete with 1,500 parking spaces. The hotel is expected to be connected to a new Arlington Convention Center, which will provide 216,000 square feet of meeting and outdoor function space.
• A mixed-use residential building with 280 units and 100,000 square feet of retail and entertainment, plus Spark’s coworking and incubator space, which is planned to help grow and support small businesses.
• A planned 200,000-square-foot corporate office headquarters in the Arlington Entertainment District.
• An additional public garage with 1,900 parking spaces.

An aerial view of the proposed Entertainment District expansion. [Image: Courtesy City of Arlington]

“When Loews Hotels & Co, The Cordish Companies, the Texas Rangers and the City of Arlington all come together on a project, there’s no limit to the dreams we can realize here in The American Dream City,” Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said in a statement. “This project and the recent National Medal of Honor Museum will add significantly to the city’s sales tax revenue, allow us to continue to keep our taxes among the lowest in the area and provide the quality services our residents have come to expect with minimal public investment.”

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The Entertainment District expansion is the latest phase of a combined $4 billion City of Arlington plan. The $250 million Texas Live! development, which opened in August 2018, along with the Loews Hotel, which opened in August 2019, and the soon-to-open Globe Life Field, the new home stadium of Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers, along with the latest expansion brings investment in new development by the partnership to over $2.25 billion.

This new mixed-use project alone is expected to generate approximately $1.8 billion in economic benefits for Arlington and Tarrant County, according to a statement.

The proposed mixed-use residential building. [Image: Courtesy City of Arlington]

Party in the front, business in the back

While the focus of Arlington’s Entertainment District is, of course, entertainment, the development will include important business-focused elements as well. The new Arlington Convention Center is expected to be adjacent to the Loews Arlington Hotel with 150,00 square feet of interior meeting space and 66,000 square feet of exterior space for outdoor events and functions.

The City of Arlington, the Texas Rangers, and The Cordish Companies also announced a vision for a 200,000-square-foot corporate headquarters to include a Class A office tower in the Entertainment District.

The Spark coworking and incubator space is part of the mixed-use retail and entertainment portion of the project. The concept initially launched in Baltimore in 2016 and has expanded four times over its first four years. It currently supports more than 165 companies and 470 members. In Baltimore, Spark has received accolades from city and state officials as an asset to the city’s Central Business District and as an entrepreneurial hub for the city and state. Its Arlington outpost will be committed to becoming an “integral part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the city and region,” according to a statement.

The first phase of the overall development created 3,000 jobs and exceeded minority- and women-owned business construction goals while serving as a model project for Tarrant County and Arlington. Phase two is expected to create an additional 3,000-plus jobs and generate $78 million for Arlington ISD, $15 million for Tarrant County College, and $30 million for Tarrant County and the hospital district over 30 years. Construction on phase two should begin during the first quarter of 2020.

A rendering of the Loews Arlington Hotel. [Image: Courtesy City of Arlington]

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