The Texas Rangers lease at Globe Life Park doesn’t run out until 2023, but the team and the City of Arlington have already made sure that the relationship between the two parties is going to last for a long time.
Both entities announced today that plans for a new retractable roof stadium have been finalized, to be completed before the current lease on Globe Life Park runs out. While there are still several questions to be answered, there are a few aspects of this situation that seem obvious given what we already know.
Texas Rangers New Stadium Deal Official
Evan Grant of the Dallas News reports that the capital required to build the stadium would likely come from the city, via parking and ticket taxes in addition to a half-cent sales tax that would be a ballot initiative in November. Instead of raising the sales tax, however, the ballot measure would simply transfer the half-cent sales tax paying off Cowboys Stadium to financing the Rangers’ new stadium.
While the figures on the cost of the construction have not yet been released, unconfirmed reports have posted a figure of $900 million and stated that ownership of the park would be split equally between the city and the Rangers. The site of the construction has not yet been confirmed either, but it wouldn’t make much sense for the new stadium to be anywhere other than the current site of Globe Life Park.
The site is a foregone conclusion because of the team’s recent purchase of parking space near Globe Life and the $200 million public/private development adjacent to Globe Life Park, Texas Live!. Similar to the setting of many other new parks, Texas Live! will feature retail, convention/hotel and restaurant space. That development is slated to be open in time for the 2019 season, raising the question of whether the Rangers’ new stadium would see its first games that year as well.
In addition to all the amenities that will undoubtedly come with the new stadium, there is likely to be one tremendous upgrade in this new stadium; temperature control. Globe Life Park is essentially an oven with its brick exterior, and the enclosed setting will allow for climate control similar to Marlins Park and Tropicana Field.
Most importantly, the new stadium project will provide the city the incentive it needs to cancel the current lease agreement at some point and write a new lease for the Rangers, which should extend long past the 2023 season that is currently set to be the lease expiration date.
The Rangers can also set about selling sponsorship in the new digs, along with approaching Globe Life about extending naming rights along with pursuing tenants for Texas Live! along with the city.
The Rangers, and all the revenue attached to them, aren’t going to leave Arlington for a long time now, if ever.
Main Photo By Rich Anderson from Denton, United States – View from my seat, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6894695
