Arlington weighs $273M stadium deal to keep Dallas Cowboys in city through 2055
The city of Arlington is set to weigh a $273 million agreement to keep the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium as the city deals with a $20 million budget deficit — and a local advocate is threatening legal action.
At its meeting on April 21, the Arlington City Council will consider a resolution to enter into an agreement with the Cowboys to extend their lease at AT&T Stadium through 2055.
Arlington Mayor Jim Ross originally told the Star-Telegram about the deal during an interview with the editorial board on April 9.
According to a city staff report, Arlington has worked with the Cowboys to explore “an extension of the current lease term to provide long-term certainty for both parties and ensure continued success of the stadium complex.”
Under the new agreement, the Cowboys would invest at least $750 million into “maintenance, operation, and improvement of the complex” through 2055. Additionally, the city would invest up to $273 million over a 20-year period into a “maintenance and operation account.”
The city faced a roughly $20 million budget shortfall last year, which it attributed mainly to a decision by the Tarrant Appraisal District not to reappraise homes until January 2027, resulting in drops in the city’s property tax revenue.
To fill that gap, the city cut $7.7 million and raised fees and property taxes.
Those budget cuts also included eliminating over 40 city jobs and a hotline for residents to ask about city services.
Warren Norred, an Arlington lawyer who has criticized Arlington’s stadium deals in the past, said voters deserve the chance to weigh in on the new deal. He said that if the city approves the proposal and staff report on Tuesday’s agenda, he will be taking legal action.
“The fight is, Are they going to fool themselves into thinking that this means that they can do whatever they want forever?” Norred told the Star-Telegram. “If this theory is right, then they never have to go back to the City Council, to the voters, for any permission for any new bonds concerning a stadium.”
Arlington District 7 council member Bowie Hogg told the Star-Telegram that the agreement is not a done deal. The council is putting the item on the agenda precisely so council members can debate whether the measure should be sent to voters.
“I think this is a good thing for the city of Arlington and the Cowboys,” Hogg said. “I think a ‘yes’ is a good thing for the city, and the Cowboys, but the ‘yes’ is, Do we do it through a city vote and through the council just voting and extending this tax, which is what we’ve been told we can do, or do we take it to a citizen vote and allow the citizens to be able to vote for it?”
The current lease agreement, enacted after a voter-approved ballot measure and extended for one year during the COVID-19 pandemic, is set to run until 2040 with an option to extend toward the end of the lease. Under that lease, the city owns AT&T Stadium, but the Cowboys take care of the maintenance and upkeep. Arlington paid $325 million for the construction of the stadium, with the rest financed by the Cowboys.
When voters approved that agreement, they also agreed to multiple taxes to support the city’s cut of the deal. Arlington was supposed to pay off that $325 million until 2035, but those taxes allowed the city to pay off its debt 10 years early — a total of $490.3 million, with additional interest and fees — last August. In 2016, Arlington voters approved a ballot measure to give $500 million in tax revenue to fund a new Texas Rangers stadium.
The agreement also says that the stadium would get upgrades to help with security, traffic, pedestrian safety and event operations. The Cowboys could draw from the city’s account over time to be reimbursed, but the team would pay improvement costs up front to get the stadium upgraded by 2043.
The city’s contribution to the agreement, the staff report says, would be funded through “voter-approved venue taxes already in place” instead of the city’s overall budget or new taxes. Even though property taxes have increased, Hogg said, the money for this agreement could not be used ad hoc to fill a budget gap.
“I voted against the property tax at that time, but they are two separate entities of money from where they’re being allocated,” Hogg explained. “This was taken to the voters and asked for a specific stadium tax, the half cent, so it must be used to pay back the stadium. You can’t take that asset and then allocate it back towards other areas of the budget.”
The agreement, Arlington mayor Jim Ross said, is an investment in the city’s entertainment district — and this agreement is a continuation of the same agreement that voters originally approved.
“We are still working within the confines of that agreement,” Ross said. “So there’s no need at this stage to go back to the voters and do any other subtype of subsequent agreement, because we’re not asking for additional monies ... we’re still operating within the confines of the original funding mechanisms that the voters have already said, ‘go do.’”
The Arlington City Council will discuss the agreement at its next meeting at 6:30 p.m. April 21 at Arlington City Council chambers, 101 South Center Street.
