When the Dallas Mavericks or Dallas Stars glance out their arena windows, City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert wants them to see a skyline, not a strip mall.
Dallas is the play, she said Friday. If they leave the urban core, she said, their view might be more Applebee’s than bright lights and buzzing streets.
“Yes, I said it,” Tolbert told a ballroom crowd, drawing applause and cheers.
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The quip, delivered at a Greater Dallas Planning Council event, came as Tolbert said the city is working to keep both teams in Dallas, “where they belong.”
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The city has tied those talks to broader economic development, citing the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center overhaul and surrounding district investment to strengthen the case for staying in the urban core or elsewhere within the city.
Although the city has collaborated with the Mavericks in scoping sites for a new arena, the hockey team is considering a move to the suburbs, including looking at the Shops at Willow Bend in Plano.
They are co-tenants at the American Airlines Center, and the Mavericks sued the hockey team for building a headquarters in Frisco, despite contractually agreeing to keep both team operations within city limits.
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The Stars countersued. They argued the Mavs, too, had violated the contract after the team’s ownership changed and they listed their corporate presence in Las Vegas.
They alleged the Mavs were trying to push the Stars out of the AAC, and that the city of Dallas should have flagged that. The city has said it isn’t involved in that dispute.