Arlington council creates city economic development corporation

The city of Arlington, one of the state’s larger municipalities without its own economic development corporation, laid the groundwork this week to create such an agency to help bring about and fund business recruitment and redevelopment projects.

At a recent budget work session, the City Council authorized the creation of the Arlington Economic Development Corp., starting a process that will include drawing up a charter and bylaws, appointing a seven-member board and setting goals and objectives.

Funding for the quasi-city corporation was not discussed. Such a corporation is typically — but not always — funded by half-cent sales tax revenue, said Jim Parajon, deputy city manager of economic development.

November is the soonest the city could conduct the required election for sales tax funding of the agency. The city could allocate up to a quarter cent — all it has remaining of the 2 cents per dollar that Texas cities can keep for themselves after sending 6.25 cents to the state. Arlington has a full cent allocated to bolstering its operating budget, a half cent to paying its share of the AT&T Stadium debt and a quarter cent to improving streets, Parajon said.

Whether and when to call an election, whom to appoint as directors and other details will be discussed at the council’s next meeting, on Aug. 4, after a July break, Mayor Jeff Williams said.

“I think it’s just critical that we move forward in investing, because when you invest in economic development, you’re investing in business and jobs, and that’s been a winning formula for Arlington in the past and for other cities,” Williams said, citing the blockbuster recruitment of General Motors to Arlington almost 60 years ago as an example. Bringing business “can affect generations of Arlington citizens in a positive way.”

The council has many other options for use of the available sales tax — either a single quarter-cent program or two eighth-cent programs. Those include creating authorities to fund crime prevention projects, rail and other transportation projects, park facilities, amenity centers as well as job training and literacy programs, City Manager Trey Yelverton told the council at its June 16 meeting.

“It’s a key tool to achieve broad community objectives,” he said. “But with each choice, you have a consequence of not being able to do something else.”

Yelverton said the city now expects to regain a half cent of its sale tax rate when it pays off its Cowboys stadium debt in 2021, 14 years earlier than originally planned.

Creating an economic development corporation in Arlington is not a new idea. Councilwoman Lana Wolff brought it up in 2003, for example, and it was among the 400 recommendations in the Champion Arlington economic development strategy from the spring of 2006.

The city contracted for many years with the Arlington Chamber of Commerce to work on economic development projects, until about 2008, when the city created its own department, said Williams, a former chamber president.

Having an economic development corporation, he added, provides “more manpower and greater expertise, and it enables us to have more money to look at redevelopment. That means more money to tear down old buildings.”

The city has some big-time opportunities, said Williams, who is tired of hearing that his 99-square-mile city is virtually built out, with nothing left but fill-in development and small raze-and-replace projects. “That still leaves us thousands of acres still yet to be developed,” he said.

He cited two large tracts on opposite corners of the Texas 360-Interstate 20 juncture, one being the 167-acre home to the old Johnson & Johnson campus that’s now for sale “and prime for redevelopment.”

The defunct Six Flags Mall is another future 100-acre redevelopment, and the city has long-range hopes to convert the sprawling surface lots around the Rangers’ and Cowboys’ stadiums into upscale development with parking garages.

“I’m here to dispell any myth that Arlington doesn’t have any land,” Williams said.

This story was originally published June 24, 2015 at 5:53 PM with the headline "Arlington council creates city economic development corporation."