Plano, Texas politicians need to find $700 million.
The real championship playoff run for the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars franchise is now into the second round. Stars ownership swept round one by getting the Plano, Texas city council to agree to a framework that would free up $700 million as seed money for a Stars’ arena-village. But that was the easy part. The road is getting tougher. Plano politicians have to find a mechanism to raise that $700 million figure. The City of Plano would own the arena, and would sign a 30-year lease agreement with Stars ownership. Plano will put up $15 million to the developer of the arena-village for demolition of a shopping mall on the parcel of land right now. The second round of this playoff run begins in July with two in-person open houses in Plano in an attempt to continue community engagement on the project on July 8th and July 14tt. Also Plano will hold a virtual open house online from July 8th to July 22nd.
The funding issue will be put before Plano voters probably on November 3rd, the final round of the playoffs. The special election would include propositions related to the authority to impose a short-term motor vehicle rental tax, a hotel occupancy tax on hotel room bookings, an event parking tax, an event admissions tax, and a venue use tax on the major league team members that play a professional game in the arena. There will be some gadget that could include a mechanism that tax money collected from a specially created entertainment district will go back to the developers instead of a municipality with the thought that the developer is creating jobs within the area. The hockey business wants to build the arena-village by 2031. Meanwhile the city of Dallas has to figure out what to do with its empty venue starting in 2031.
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Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
