From Irving, Texas: "Life After Texas Stadium," by Brandon Formby

This story originally appeared on the Mass Transit website via the Dallas Morning News at this address: http://www.masstransitmag.com/online/article.jsp?siteSection=3&id=7654&pageNum=1. This link no longer exists, nor does a Google search turn up the original Dallas Morning News article. A copy of the original story appears below.


Texas Stadium introduced the city of Irving to the world.

Steady appearances on television during football games and the opening sequence of the hit drama Dallas kept the iconic structure in the public eye for decades. And the city focused its sales pitch over the years to make sure people knew the famous structure belonged to Irving, not Dallas.

But the team is moving to Arlington next season. And the stadium will soon be demolished to pave the way for development.

Where does that leave Irving?

Right where city officials want it to be.

"I kind of look forward to it," Irving City Council member Lewis Patrick said of the stadium's end. He was the city's public works director when the stadium was being built in the late 1960s. "It's not saddening or anything. It's just the way it's going."

After all, clearing the stadium site is key to much of what Irving envisions for its future. A bevy of construction projects and transportation upgrades are on the horizon - including what's believed to be the largest collection of transit-oriented developments in the nation.

Many of those projects are the result of a 1996 election. Irving voters chose to continue putting tax dollars into Dallas Area Rapid Transit rather than toward Texas Stadium renovations that arguably could have kept the team in Irving.

DART plans to build a light-rail line that will run through Irving, connecting Dallas to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. The Orange Line will have several stops along the way. Among them are planned stations at the stadium site, the University of Dallas, North Lake College and three spots in Las Colinas' urban center. An outlet mall is planned for land just north of where the stadium sits.

And surrounding the planned Las Colinas stops, officials and developers want to replicate the success of Dallas projects such as Mockingbird Station and West Village - but on a much larger scale. They're planning several projects that will create pedestrian-friendly urban neighborhoods made up of homes, offices, retail outlets and entertainment venues.

The city also is building a convention center and working with a developer to build an adjacent entertainment complex in Las Colinas within walking distance to a rail station.

"Obviously Texas Stadium is an iconic building," said Brenda McDonald, the city's real estate and development director. "But Irving has a lot of iconic buildings. If you look at the Las Colinas urban center, it's second to none. And we're building a convention center there that will be an iconic building."

The first phase of the rail line will run to Las Colinas and is set to open December 2011. As construction of the rail gets ready to begin, Texas Department of Transportation officials have a renovation project of their own - redoing the interchange of highways that played a role in Irving snagging Texas Stadium in the first place.

State transportation officials and the city are working on an agreement that will allow the state to rent the stadium site from Irving for the next decade at an estimated cost of $15 million. The land will be used as the staging area for the massive $518 million project dubbed the Diamond Interchange.

The renovation will streamline the area's four major thoroughfares - state highways 114 and 183, Loop 12 and Spur 482 - with DART's rail line.

However, if a viable redevelopment project for the site emerges, city officials will likely have the option to move the transportation department's staging area to make way.

Irving officials want to have the stadium site cleared by early 2010, though they haven't decided whether to demolish the stadium in one dramatic spectacle or dismantle it piece by piece. They also are exploring whether to sell the opportunity to push the implosion button if they go the demolition route.

"You can imagine an Eagles or Redskins fan would love to blow it up," Ms. McDonald said.

While the stadium and the team have been part of the sales pitch to outsiders, the city has plenty of other selling points. There's the Las Colinas urban center, the city's proximity to one of the nation's busiest airports and a large number of local highways running through Irving. And while the stadium may give folks an idea of where Irving is, officials said it hasn't defined the city.

"What it's best done for us is create the identity that we're a suburb of Dallas," said Maura Gast, the executive director of the Irving Convention and Visitors Bureau and whose job it is to sell the city to outsiders.

And there's one factor city officials are quick to point out - the football team's corporate headquarters will remain in Irving's deed-restricted Valley Ranch area.

"The stadium tenant is leaving, but the Dallas Cowboys headquarters remains here," Ms. Gast said. "And that's very important to us."

Stadium farewell

The Dallas Cowboys will host a ceremony after tonight's last regular-season home game to celebrate their history in Texas Stadium. Game time is 7:15 p.m. The ceremony will begin after the game. Stadium parking lots will open earlier than usual. The red, gold and green lots will open at 2 p.m., as will gates 1 and 6 of the blue lots. The rest of the blue lots will open at 3 p.m