With population growth expanding in the greater Austin region and the fast development of the city of Cedar Park, it became very clear in 2002 that city had a vision of where it wanted to be. Cedar Park wanted to be a destination, not just a stop on the map for travelers passing through. How would the city accomplish this task? It was simple, construct a multi-million dollar, state-of-the art facility built to house a new professional ice hockey team and garner national recording artist for high-profile concerts. It sounded easy, but getting to the Grand Opening of the Cedar Park Center took nearly seven years from the inception of the idea, up to George Strait’s historic opening concert in late September.
It was difficult to get the arena concept up and running. Finding the right hockey team that fit the profile of what Cedar Park was looking for and what the region deserved took quite a while. A lot happened in seven years to make this partnership the right fit for not just the city of Cedar Park, but also for the Dallas Stars and the Central Texas region.
“I believe it is human nature to want to build something grand,” said City Council member Matt Powell. “You want it to be something that will have a lasting impact and make people happy.”
The Early Years
To start something so grand, you need a vision and an idea of where you would like to go. In 2002, Cedar Park had a population of just over 25,000. Thinking about a city of that size building an arena was a little scary. Fortunately, it had been done before in a small Texas town. In 2000, the city of Round Rock built the Dell Diamond baseball stadium, and its success has been noted nationally ever since.
In 2002, the idea was brought to the table by Southwest Sports Group (the former name of the parent company that owned the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers). Southwest Sports Group would later become Hicks Sports Group. The Dallas Stars were interested in bringing its AHL affiliate to the greater Austin region. The market was ready to take the next step with the highest level of minor-pro hockey ready to skate into the area and, Dallas was hopeful to expand its NHL exposure deeper into the heart of Texas.
The idea was brought to the table as talks increased and the arena was taking an imaginable shape. The city and Southwest Sports Group wanted an arena that could seat 5,500 to 6,500 with luxury suites, restaurants, a team store and a second ice rink. Later, the idea of adding an outdoor amphitheater was entertained, but it was soon dropped from the discussions.
They agreed on a $32 million facility, with the city paying the bulk of the building cost in voter-approved bonds, nonvoter approved revenue bonds and possibly funds from the economic development board. The proposed outdoor amphitheater would seat 7,500, and the arena itself would hold 6,000 seats for hockey and contain two ice rinks. They had hoped it would open in 2004.
With the arena idea firmly in place, the next step in getting the project up and running was political. Despite the fact that City Council members believed this would be the right thing for the city, in true fashion, council decided to leave it up to the residents in a vote. After 7,169 voters had their say, one thing was clear: the city of Cedar Park would not get an arena, and it was not ready to take the next step. Residents turned down the arena by a count of 4,196 to 2,973.
The arena project stalled out and could not move forward without voter approval. City Council was forced to head back to the drawing board.
The Middle Years
There is an old saying that if you at first do not succeed, try and try again. So the city of Cedar Park stepped up and decided to take another run at an arena. In 2004, the idea picked up steam once more. This time neither the Dallas Stars nor Southwest Sports Group would be involved. Instead, the city worked with a few other groups that included the Central Hockey League’s Austin Ice Bats and possible arena operator Global Entertainment Group.
The arena concept never went away, it just lost steam for a while after the voters turned it down. Over time, it started to heat up again, and this time around, they tabbed the arena the Multi Purpose Events Center (MPEC).
Under the new agreement, the city would provide the land for the roughly $25 million MPEC. The city provided a financing mechanism for the capital costs to construct the center and provide input for the design of the center. Global Entertainment (GE) stepped in as the next proposed partner. They envisioned a 5,600-seat arena. The hockey team would likely be the Ice Bats, and GE would operate the city-owned facility.
Once again, City Council wanted to know the people’s opinion of the proposed arena and partnerships and called for another special vote. On Feb. 5, 2005, the residents of Cedar Park voted to move forward with the MPEC, approving the city’s partnership with GE.
Not long after approval, the city picked the site of its new arena to be constructed off the new toll road, 183-A, at the intersection of New Hope Road. The only thing left before beginning construction was paperwork and figuring out how much the city partners were going to contribute to the project.
This is where the MPEC project came to a screeching halt. The city was never able to reach a contract fair enough for both parties. In late March, the city decided to walk away from the negotiating table and put the arena project on hold. After all, the city was not looking for a company to come in and operate the arena. The city was looking for a partner.
The idea of the arena sat for a while.
Third Time is a Charm
Phil Brewer, director of economic development for the City of Cedar Park, was heavily involved in the process of getting an arena built in Cedar Park. Brewer was a part of the Round Rock City Council group that was able to use public funds to build the Dell Diamond, which has been a great success story east of Cedar Park. Brewer played a big role throughout the development of the arena in Cedar Park.
In order to get to where it wanted to be with the arena and partnership, the city needed to go back to the drawing board.
“In the summer of 2006, the council had a strategic planning retreat,” explained Brewer. “Once again, the event center came up as a discussion item, and we tried to figure out how we could finance the deal, but we didn’t want to raise residents’ taxes with a hike in property taxes. That is where the idea of using the 4 A corporation came in. That is when it really got started again. We then voted in November to expand the 4 A’s funding, and it passed. It was a key step for us to get started.”
Voters approved it, and they were off and running.
“We felt the citizens were saying, ‘we want this; go out and get it done,’” added Brewer.
The next step was to try and narrow down which direction they wanted to go with the arena.
“Initially, we were looking at putting in a 5,000-seat arena, but as we did our due diligence, we came to realize that we needed at least a 6,000-seat arena to qualify for an AHL team,” explained Brewer. “We also kept hearing that a lot of concerts and promoters were trying to get away from 18,000-seat arenas and looking into smaller venues to hold events. We also knew that if we built it big enough, another community in the area could not come in and try to build one of their own that would compete with ours. When we looked at the numbers, we knew we had a threshold of what we could spend. We also knew that in three to five years, building a facility of this nature will not cost 55 million dollars, it could go as high as 65 to 70 million.”
Brewer and his group of city officials started to visit various arenas throughout the country, starting in Hildago and eventually finding their basic arena-footprint in Scottsdale, Arizona at Tim’s Toyota Center. They also visited the Broomfield Events Center in Colorado, which was developed by John Frew, who would later become an integral part of Cedar Park Center’s development. Through their travels, the city officials figured out more of what they were looking for in an arena for the area.
“At this point, we started to work with Sink Combs Architects, who had already worked on some of our previous iterations,” said Brewer. “They had designed both buildings, [and] the facility in Rio Rancho, and had they already worked with us in the past. Simply put, our building is really a fourth generation of the previous three. We just have a few more seats, bells and whistles.”
With the arena development and design falling into place, the city officials started to look into finding a partner to work with. They narrowed it down to three groups that were all bidding for the right to operate the facility and bring in a hockey team. There was one more catch to making it all happen: The city wanted a partner, not an events center operator. This is where they hit their last snag; none of the three groups wanted to partner financially. Things started to look grim once more.
Everything changed with a simple phone call between then Dallas Stars President Jim Lites and Brewer, which took place in late August of 2007. Brewer explained to Lites the city was looking for a partner. Lites told him he needed 72 hours. Three days later, Lites, Dallas Executive Vice President of Business Randy Locey and Craig Claussen of the American Airlines Center were in Cedar Park to begin discussions. From there it picked up steam and started to move along.
The 4A board formally accepted the application of the Hicks Sports Group. The Dallas Stars made it clear they would bring their AHL Affiliate to Cedar Park if everything was approved in a vote by residents. From the Stars prospective, there were numerous reasons why they wanted their affiliate so close.
“First off, it is in our TV market,” said Randy Locey, Dallas Stars executive vice president of business operations. “It is three hours up and down the road by car and only a one-hour flight. We felt it was an area for us to be in. We had AHL teams in Salt Lake City and Des Moines, with prospects all over the place last season. It was a full one-day trip to get players anywhere if we needed them. We wanted to be in the state of Texas, and we needed to be able to get our players up to the big club quickly.”
By November, the City of Cedar Park and the Dallas Stars (Hicks Sports Marketing Group, or HSG) inked a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to work on an estimated $55 million facility. By February of 2008, the city and HSG entered into a formal agreement to have an arena completed and operating by October 2009. At the same time, it was officially announced the Dallas Stars would bring its AHL affiliate to the new Cedar Park Center and call the team the Texas Stars.
The main reason the facility price tag blossomed from $32 million on the previous attempts to $55 million was simple.
“We had to have a training facility that was equal to, if not better than, an NHL class facility for our AHL team,” explained Locey. “We had to have AHL-NHL quality ice as far as having a humidification system built to handle the environment in Central Texas. The initial system they wanted to put in would have been lower than what we are at today. We had to have conditions that would prove NHL quality at the end of the day. That was especially important with NHL guys coming and going to play here.
“We wanted a minimum of 6,800 seats; at one point we were down into the high 5,000 range, and we could not do that. We wanted the suites and the structural capability to do the third-party events that are planned for this great arena. A lot of it was going to be there anyway, but we just kept adding bits and pieces; then the city started to add bits and pieces.”
In May of 2008, bulldozers were clearing the site at New Hope Road and 183-A, preparing the area for construction. With the production of the arena well under way, the hockey side and business side of things needed to catch up. The Dallas Stars turned to a knowledgeable and experienced man to lead the operation. In June, Rick McLaughlin was appointed to lead the charge and named the first president and general manager of Cedar Park Center. McLaughlin would make the transition from the Dallas Stars executive management team to Cedar Park a smooth one. He has been in major league sports since 1983 and spent the last 17 years working with the Hicks Group.
On June 10, Dallas Stars officials and city officials held the historic groundbreaking ceremony at the construction site, and by July the Texas Stars had accepted its first deposit for season tickets. It continued to move quickly from there with construction in full bloom and the sale of the first season tickets, and by October, the team’s front office was open for business.
The hockey side took another step forward in November of 2008. The Dallas Stars announced Scott White as the team’s first general manager. White spent the 2008-09 season scouting and placing Dallas prospects in various AHL markets to continue their development in preparation for the Texas Stars inaugural season.
In December of 2008, the first steel beam was raised to start the framework of the arena. By April of 2009, the steel framework was raised for the main walls of the building. The Texas Stars and city officials held a ceremony for the historic final steel beam topping off the building.
“I remember the day they were topping off the building, and I looked at Kelly Brendt, finally realizing all the hard work we had done to get here,” said Brewer. “I said to him, ‘We are building an events center’ and Kelley replied, ‘I know, I can’t believe it.’”
They laughed together, signed the beam and watched in awe as it went up and in place.
Just shortly after, the hockey team took another giant step forward with the American Hockey League formally awarding a temporary franchise to the Texas Stars. There were two more big announcements coming in the next few weeks. The first family show was announced when a deal was inked with “Walking with Dinosaurs.” A few days later, it was announced that George Strait would christen the building, performing as the opening act at Cedar Park Center.
The Dallas Stars made an official announcement of its own days later when General Manager Joe Nieuwendyk tabbed Glen Gulutzan to be the first head coach in Texas Stars history. Gulutzan posted a 254-124-53 record with the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers prior to joining the Stars. It was also announced that veteran assistant coach Paul Jerrard would join him behind the Texas Stars bench. By August, the team had a schedule, and the inaugural season was just over a month away.
While fans sit in their seats and enjoy games at Cedar Park Center, not much thought will go into how long it took to put this arena in place or who was responsible for picking something so simple as the color of the seats. They will probably be focused on the ice, the non-stop action and hopefully another Stars victory (with more to come).
What they should consider after reading this article is this: Cedar Park is now a destination, not just another stop on the map. A lot of hard work and effort went into giving this region this type of opportunity. There are plenty of thank-yous to be given out, but the biggest thank-you” ultimately belongs to the fans and residents, who wanted this great arena and now fill it with their own excitement.
