Arlington Builds Two Billion Dollar Ballparks While Fort Worth Builds A Boondoggle

In this morning's Fort Worth Star-Telegram I saw what you see here, an artist's rendering of Arlington's new baseball park which Arlington's voters approved of building a few weeks ago.

The Star-Telegram article is titled Arlington, Rangers unveil timeline for $1 billion stadium project.

The unveiling of a project timeline is what caught my eye in that headline.

First paragraph of the article...

Aiming to open the Texas Rangers’ new stadium in April 2020, team and city officials now have a timeline for planning and building the $1 billion project.

Imagine that, a public works project with a timeline.

Fort Worth has a public works project that has been bumbling along for most of this century, with an ever changing project timeline. In the latest mention of a sort of timeline, J.D. Granger stated the infrastructure for the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision should be completed in 2023.

Three years after Arlington opens its newest ballpark Fort Worth may complete the infrastructure for what is known as American's Biggest Boondoggle.

Infrastructure of The Boondoggle? What does that mean? The bridges completed? The ditch dug? The diversion mechanism in place? The Magic Trees planted?

Arlington began building the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium in 2004, starting with eminent domain abuse to take homes, businesses and apartments. If I remember right the new Cowboy stadium was open for business by 2009.

And now Arlington is going to build another billion dollar ballpark, having it open by 2020.

So, that will be two billion dollar ballparks in Arlington built in less time than it may take Fort Worth to install infrastructure for a vitally (not) needed flood control and economic development scheme.

Another paragraph in the Star-Telegram article details a stark difference between Fort Worth's boondoggle and Arlington's successful stadium projects...

On Nov. 8, Arlington voters overwhelmingly backed the city’s plan to extend a half-cent sales tax, 2 percent hotel occupancy tax and 5 percent car rental tax to pay $500 million toward the project, with bonds projected to be paid off in 30 years. The vote also authorized up to a 10 percent admission tax and $3 parking tax for the Rangers, which the team could use to help pay its own share of the retractable-roof stadium’s cost.

Imagine that. In Arlington, unlike Fort Worth, voters were allowed to vote on whether they wanted to back the city's plan to build a new ballpark.

America's Biggest Boondoggle has been boondoggling along for most of this century due to the project not being fully funded. Money comes in in bits and pieces, mostly federal dollars secured by the mother of the unqualified person hired to be the director of what has become America's Biggest Boondoggle.

At the present time the construction of The Boondoggle's three simple bridges, being built to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, has been has been stalled for almost a year due to design errors.

Those three simple bridges did have a project timeline.

Four years.

Four years to build three simple little bridges, with that four years now stretched to five, and likely longer.

Since, apparently, the Star-Telegram is aware of the concept of a project timeline I wonder why none of that newspaper's intrepid reporters have investigated why there is no project timeline for America's Biggest  Boondoggle?

Why Is No Privately Financed Ballpark Possible In Arlington?

With voters in Arlington, Texas being asked, yet again, to lend their voting support to the building of yet one more sports palace for the sports watching enjoyment of the rest of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, and North Texas, I thought this, which I saw in the Seattle Times, to be interesting.

A few years ago Seattle balked at upgrading Key Arena where the Seattle Supersonics played basketball. This balking led to Chesapeake Energy's Aubrey McClendon and others, moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City.

Many in Seattle were sad to see the Sonics go, others, tired of demands for sports palace upgrades, thought good riddance.

But, ever since the Seattle Sonics left the Pacific Northwest there has been an ongoing effort to return NBA basketball to one of its best markets.

A Seattle hedge fund manager, Chris Hansen, came up with a plan to finance the building of a new basketball arena, to be built slightly south of were the Mariners and Seahawks play their ball games.

Hansen and Seattle reached an agreement regarding how this arena plan could move forward. The original plan had the city paying part of the cost of the new arena. But, there were complications.

Now Chris Hansen has come up with a new plan, an all private plan to finance the building of a new Seattle basketball and hockey arena.

This is a bit of a contrast with how similar arenas gets built in the D/FW zone.

A few years back Fort Worth voters were asked to approve the funding for the building of a new multi-purpose arena in what Fort Worth calls its Cultural District. The public approval was in the form of three ballot propositions. One proposition asked voters to approve a dollar fee on livestock stalls, another a tax on parking, another a tax on tickets.

You reading this in democratic parts of America, I am not making this up. This is how Fort Worth voters were asked to approve half the funding of a multi-purpose arena.

Has that new Fort Worth arena begun construction yet? Such seems to take an awful long time in Fort Worth.

Back to Seattle.

Now that Chris Hansen has come up with a new plan to build a new arena another group has come up with another privately financed plan, with that plan renovating Key Arena, that being the location where the Sonics played before moving to Oklahoma City.

Key Arena began during the Seattle World's Fair as the Washington State Pavilion. After the World's Fair the Washington State Pavilion was remodeled into being the Seattle Coliseum, a sports palace. In the early 1990s Key Arena was once again remodeled, increasing fan capacity.

It was the fact that Key Arena had been recently remodeled that voters balked at approving one more remodel, hence saying goodbye to the Sonics.

This was a voter reaction similar to that taking place in Arlington where there is some voter fatigue, having voted to build what the public had been told was a state of the art ballpark, back in the 1990s. Then early in the new century approving the building of a state of the art football stadium, a home run hit distance from the baseball park.

And now, in 2016, being asked to build a new air-conditioned baseball park, to replace the ballpark most locals still think of as new.

I wonder why no one in the D/FW zone comes up with any sort of private plan to build or remodel any of the area sports palaces? Like a clever, privately financed plan to somehow provide shade and conditioned air in the existing Arlington baseball park....