During its baseball tenure, I visited The Ballpark in Arlington (now Globe Life Park) three times. Other than the last time I went in early April 2017, every time it was as hot as hell. After living in the desert for a few years, the pure heat doesn’t bother me anymore. The humidity can be stifling. On Thursday I walked the neighborhood around my hotel, a mixture of budget accommodations and light industrial buildings. If that sounds like the Coliseum, it’s not far removed.
Anyway, a mile into my journey I checked my watch, which showed it was 90 degrees outside at 10 AM. I was feeling the humidity, so I decided that after I completed my walk and returned to the hotel I would take a quick shower because I was feeling sticky. For all its retro design cues and outdoor feel, the old Ballpark in Arlington was not designed to comfortably accommodate tens of thousands of people during the brutal Texas summers. It became obsolete for that reason alone. When an opportunity arose to extend an Arlington sales tax to build a new retractable roof ballpark nearby, Arlington jumped on it. The Rangers, who previously flirted with moving to Dallas, jumped on board. The rest culminated in air conditioned bliss.
There were talks in the past about building a retractable roof over the old 17-acre ballpark, which fits into a neat superblock within the Arlington Sports and Entertainment District with little buffer around it. From an engineering standpoint that made it difficult to plan how to incorporate the retractable roof, which would require additional acreage to store itself when it was open. In addition, the cooling costs for a more voluminous building and footprint were clearly not attractive from a business standpoint. The Rangers looked across the street for a site where architect HKS could conceive the team’s 21st Century requirements: fewer seats, more concourses, and most importantly, air conditioning.
They ended up with Globe Life Field on that spot south of Randol Mill Road, covering 13 acres to the east of the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium. Adjacent to GLF is Texas Live!, a combination of restaurants, a Loews hotel, and public congregation space. Just outside the commercial development is a tiny standalone 7-Eleven location.
While Globe Life Park is a bigger stadium on a bigger parcel than successor Globe Life Field, when combined with the ancillary development Texas Live!, GLF’s footprint is larger. Before the game on Wednesday, I explored Texas Live! to get a feel for it. Wanting a pre-game bite after the 1 PM tour, I settled on the Lockhart Smokehouse location in the complex. It was mostly empty as you would expect several hours before a game. I asked the bartender if this was normal and what business was like during games. She said it’s pretty slow around 2 (when I dropped in), picks up quickly for the pre-game crowd, and drops off once the game starts. I followed up by asking if fans are allowed to go back-and-forth between the restaurants and the ballpark after first pitch. She replied in the affirmative, though she said that it hasn’t happened yet. It might be a behavioral conditioning phenomenon, as fans may not yet be aware that they could order from their seats, walk out to pick up food from one of the restaurants, then walk back. Pro-tip: If I was with family or on a date, that’s how I would roll. Incidentally, I had a half-pound of the brisket (fatty, excellently cooked, could use better bark) and jalapeño mac-and-cheese, washed down with a couple of Shiner Bocks.
As I had time to kill, I wandered out to AT&T Stadium and the Wal-Mart across the street to pick up a couple of items, as there are few places for provisions in the area. After picking up my items, I decided to walk all the way back to the hotel. Curiously, the 1.7 mile distance was nearly the same length as the entire Jack London Square IFD in Oakland from west to east. As you can imagine, I had to take shower when I arrived at the hotel. Then I took a nap, which prepared me for Wednesday night’s 7 PM first pitch. I took a Lyft to the ballpark, where there was a proper queueing area for rideshare, unlike the predecessor.
The Rangers upgraded ballparks in a big, expensive way with the opening of Globe Life Field. Arlington itself remains remarkably the same. Decades ago the city fathers decided to remake the area with a focus on sports and entertainment, creating an economic district to that effect. The first company from the industry was Six Flags, which opened its Six Flags over Texas location in 1961. Next was the Rangers, who moved into an expanded Turnpike Stadium in 1972 after the mayor directly solicited teams by handwritten letter. The Ballpark in Arlington replaced Arlington Stadium in 1994. The Cowboys moved from nearby Irving to Arlington in 2009. During the intervening years, Arlington attracted the International Bowling Hall of Fame from St. Louis, an eSports venue, and soon a small convention center on the site of Arlington Stadium. Globe Life Park is being redeveloped, with the field converted for football/soccer/rugby use, new office tenants including the world headquarters for Six Flags, and approved residential uses on site. Despite Dave Kaval’s insistence that a MLB ballpark must be built “downtown,” Arlington is the antithesis to this notion. Downtown Arlington is 2 miles southwest of the Sports and Entertainment District and has far less overt corporate branding. A rail line runs through the Downtown area, another nod to the city’s Wild West origins. Sadly, there is no train depot. The nearest train station is near DFW airport. Public transportation remains pathetic. Bike lanes are scarce. Large stretches of streets have no sidewalks. Arlington is an urbanist’s nightmare.
Arlington got these attractions and got itself on the map in the process. No pro team will ever name themselves after Arlington. Yet its population is nearly 400,000, just behind Oakland and slightly ahead of Cleveland. It has a large commuter school (UT-Arlington) on the other side of downtown. How much is it worth to be the playground for North Texas sports/entertainment even if you don’t get much credit for it? Judging by Arlington’s desire to keep this economic model going, they seem to be okay with it.
Later this weekend I’ll post my review of Globe Life Field. For now, consider the choice Arlington made, and how it in some ways mirrors what Oakland has done over the past 50+ years.
newballpark.org 
WAY off topic ML, but can you address the (at least on the surface) lack of outrage over the A’s wanting $850 MILLION in public subsidies for a HT ballpark? Perhaps it’s there (somewhere), but at least in your Twitter-verse and the media there is nothing but pure happy talk over the HT proposal; from Mayor Schaaf all the way to down to the Bleacher Dave-types who hype about “free money that doesn’t exist without the ballpark.” Schaaf being adamant about no public dollars for the Raiders, but all of a sudden it’s all good?! $200 million would’ve been a big ask for Oakland even during good economic times. Now?! $850 MILLION from a city with major budgetary problems in a post-pandemic world? Yet, nothing but happy talk; what gives?