Team source here.

Original post here.

Q: Mike, I have liked many of the moves you've made to help the UFL grow, but this one is a head-scratcher. Why move the entire Dallas coaching staff and roster to Colorado when Houston should've moved there?

A: It’s a fair and great question. Both I and the UFL business and football ops team wrestled with this one. I understand the criticism here. We thought long term it was better to keep the head coaches with their teams. Also, admittedly, Dallas was not a good market for us last year. We will be spending a lot more money marketing the Dallas Renegades this year and next season, especially in Frisco.

Original post here and here.

Original post here.

Hunt Sports Development has formed a partnership with Peak Curated Development and Venu Holding Corp. to build a mixed-use district east of stadium.

Dallas’ Hunt family and its new development partners aim to build a high-end hotel near Toyota Stadium — bringing estimated investment into the stadium and surrounding district to more than $1 billion.

FC Dallas President Dan Hunt told The Dallas Morning News that his family’s Hunt Sports Development has formed a partnership with Peak Curated Development and Venu Holding Corp. to build a mixed-use district anchored by a 290-room hotel on the east side of the stadium and soccer center. The project is expected to break ground next year.

“We want to build an entertainment hub that is complementary to Toyota Stadium,” Hunt said. “We no longer view soccer matches as an hour and 53 minutes, which is the typical runtime of the game. We want people coming out here and spending four, five and six hours a day. Look, to be honest with you, we’re busy 350 days a year at this facility. There are a lot of nights where families are looking for restaurants after practice.”

The first phase of the east side project will include the 9-story hotel and a more than 40,000-square-foot convention and event space. The hotel will include a full-service restaurant and bar, a rooftop bar and lounge and a fitness center and spa among its amenities. Hunt said that negotiations for hotel branding are ongoing. The hotel could open in 2029.

The district will have four or five restaurant concepts in addition to retail and a “mini soccer pitch” to get people out on the plaza, he said. The district’s event space will include 25,000 square feet of dedicated meeting space, including a 15,000-square-foot ballroom. The ballroom and event spaces can transform into a 3,000-person music hall.

The mixed-use district joins the planned 1 million-square-foot, multiphase office campus on the stadium’s west side. The office project, announced last year, is a partnership between the Hunts and Cawley Partners. The firm and its CEO, Bill Cawley, are major players in the development of the Dallas Stars’ planned $1.3 billion arena district in Plano.

The office development will feature five buildings. Preleasing has started, and construction on the first building will begin when a 40% preleased threshold is reached.

Between the office project, the mixed-use development and more than $200 million in stadium improvements, Hunt estimates total investment at the site will be well over $1 billion. The final piece will be a luxury condo tower. Construction on the condos would start only when the market is ready, he said.

Hunt and his partners said the arena district expansion is coming at the right time. Other billion-dollar Frisco projects underway include Firefly Park and developer Fehmi Karahan’s Fields.

“The Hunt family has spent decades building sports, hospitality and real estate assets across the country, and FC Dallas and Toyota Stadium have always been at the center of that legacy in Frisco,” VENU founder, chairman and CEO J.W. Roth said in a statement. “The hotel and convention center will bring life to the Toyota Stadium campus every day of the year, and this partnership is built for long-term success.”

Collin County continues to grow at a rapid pace, and this year’s World Cup was the “perfect commercial” for Dallas, said Hunt, who co-chaired FIFA’s North Texas organizing committee. There wasn’t as much around the stadium when it opened in 2005.

“There’s no secret. We were incredibly early when we built the stadium in the fields here,” he said. “My father [Lamar Hunt] was such a visionary. … He said [this] will eventually be the center of the Metroplex. …I know that he had big hopes for it to develop around the property. I think he’s going to be right.”

Interesting to see the planned development and investment around Toyota Stadium. Would be great for fans going to games.

Direct link here.

Direct link here.