Ballpark opponents haven’t made a good case
The Arlington City Council has called a Nov. 8 election on paying half the cost of a new $1 billion ballpark for the Texas Rangers, and so far none of the arguments against that idea hold water.
Yes, Globe Life Park, the Rangers’ current home, is only 22 years old. It’s a beautiful place, and many baseball fans don’t want to see it go.
Yes, $500 million is a lot to spend, especially with Globe Life Park still as serviceable as it was when it opened on April 1, 1994.
And yes, the owners of the Rangers are very wealthy. Some people object very strongly to devoting so much city money to help them run their lucrative business.
Yet those and all the other arguments advanced so far, with the election less than 90 days away, don’t outweigh this one for building the new ballpark: The Rangers will leave Arlington for a new stadium elsewhere if voters don’t approve the Nov. 8 proposal.
How can we say that? Because the Rangers owners have decided to pay the other $500 million for the new ballpark.
Businesspeople don’t make that kind of investment on a whim. The Rangers owners have decided that a new ballpark is necessary.
As beautiful as Globe Life Park is, for most of the professional baseball season it is just too hot for fans and for players. Paying $30 to $50 for midprice seats to bake in the Texas sun is not fun for as many people as it would be to watch the same game in a retractable-roof, climate-controlled new ballpark.
The Rangers owners have to consider that as they plan for the end of their Globe Life Park lease after the 2023 season.
If Arlington voters agree, they could be playing in that new ballpark by the 2020 season.
Arlington has revenue available — the half-cent sales tax, 2 percent hotel occupancy tax and 5 percent car rental tax now being used to pay off about $175 million in remaining debt on AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
The biggest remaining detail is how to mesh the stadium and ballpark loans. Current payments won’t pay off the AT&T stadium bonds until 2021.
The city is looking at two options: stretching out the stadium payments until 2028 at an additional interest cost of $39 million, or refinancing the debt with an anticipated lower interest rate to be paid off in 2034, an additional interest cost of $20 million.
This story was originally published August 12, 2016 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Ballpark opponents haven’t made a good case."