All of Tarrant County would see impact of new ballpark
Every Tarrant County resident should cheer for Arlington voters to approve construction of a new Texas Rangers ballpark in the city’s Nov. 8 election.
The immediate and ongoing countywide economic impact of the $1 billion project would be huge, according to an analysis performed for the Arlington Convention & Visitors Bureau by the HR&A Advisors Inc. real estate and economic development consulting firm.
HR&A, with offices in New York, Dallas, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., has been a consultant on development projects in North America and abroad for 40 years. Its conclusions are credible.
Those conclusions have been known in Arlington for several weeks now. City officials described them when they announced the ballpark proposal back in May.
If the Rangers stay in Arlington beyond the April 2024 expiration of their lease on Globe Life Park — that is, if there’s a retractable-roof, climate-controlled stadium the team’s owners seem determined they will play in — the annual economic impact on Arlington would be $77.5 million, the HR&A analysis shows.
What’s received less attention is the study’s estimate of annual economic impact on Tarrant County as a whole — $137.6 million.
Visitors to the ballpark don’t only stay in Arlington; not just Arlington residents work at the ballpark; suppliers and contractors for ballpark activities would come from across the county — you get the picture.
The $77.5 million annual impact in Arlington is the lion’s share, as it should be. But the rest of the county would get a share, too.
The same theme continues throughout the analysis.
The new ballpark would support the equivalent of 1,450 full-time jobs in Arlington. The countywide figure is 1,950 jobs.
That’s after the new ballpark is built and operating. There’s also the construction phase, which would start next year.
HR&A says that construction would bring 3,000 jobs across Tarrant County, 600 of them in Arlington.
Construction would inject $484.9 million into the county economy, $88.6 million of it in Arlington.
That doesn’t include Texas Live!, the $200 million convention, hotel and entertainment complex expected to be built across from the ballpark. Nor does it include the economic momentum those projects would bring to Arlington and Tarrant County.
Cheer Arlington on.
This story was originally published August 26, 2016 at 6:01 PM with the headline "All of Tarrant County would see impact of new ballpark."