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Some strong-legged punter will eventually get a kick out of the stadium
Architectural firm spent nearly a decade on stadium project
Seating arrangements are based on event type
The views, from the cheap seats to the big suites
Westbound traffic will have the most challenges leaving Cowboys Stadium
Where the $1.15 billion for Cowboys Stadium came from
Jones family intimately involved in stadium details
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When Robert Cluck called Jerry Jones in July 2004, he had little confidence that Jones’ Dallas Cowboys would seriously consider moving to Arlington.
Cluck, who had been mayor for only a year, knew that the city had pitched land in north Arlington as a stadium site in 2001 but that the team had rejected it because of flooding issues. But when Cluck saw the team’s negotiations to build a state-of-the-art stadium in Dallas going nowhere, he called Jones for a private meeting."Jerry Jones wanted to put the stadium up, and I wanted the stadium in Arlington. I knew it would have a big economic impact," Cluck said. "When I left the meeting, I pretty well knew they would come here."Five years after that meeting, the $1.15 billion football stadium is about to host its first event. The 80,000-seat venue has been selected as the site of the 2011 Super Bowl and other major sporting events and is expected to generate at least $3 million in sales tax revenue and lease payments for the city annually.Getting here wasn’t a smooth ride.First, Cluck had to persuade the City Council, and Arlington voters, to invest tax dollars in the stadium. Then, the city spent years in and out of court negotiating payments for property needed for the project. Last year, the city got stung when the market tanked and variable interest rates on the stadium construction bonds skyrocketed, costing Arlington millions in refinancing costs.But for Cluck, now in his fourth term as mayor, it was worth it all to see the iconic steel-and-glass stadium that now towers over Collins Street."I’m not after fame or fortune here," said Cluck, 70. "My real intent in getting the Cowboys was to try to jump-start the economy in Arlington, to get something big, like the Rangers."Campaign issueIt was during Cluck’s first meeting with Jones and team representatives that he proposed that the city pay for half of the stadium’s $650 million cost. But he hadn’t yet run the idea by his colleagues on the council."I thought $650 million was going to be a low number, so I didn’t want to be on the hook for an unlimited amount of money," Cluck said. "It seemed reasonable to go in for half of it."He told council members about his talks with the Cowboys and pushed for a public-private partnership. By late August, the council voted unanimously to put the idea of selling $325 million in stadium bonds before the voters. The mayor and stadium supporters faced tough opposition from a coalition of three Arlington groups against such spending. But in November 2004, the bond referendum passed 55 to 45 percent. "When we got that vote, I knew that we had made our claim, and I knew we were going to have a new stadium, but I didn’t think we had the critical pieces to this puzzle in any way completely thought out, much less executed," Jones said. "Certainly we knew of the direction and the avenues we wanted to go . . . but there was a part of me that said, 'Our work has just begun.’ "
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