The Dallas Stars have chosen Plano for their future home, a move that puts downtown Dallas on the verge of losing both of its major professional sports franchises.
The team announced Tuesday it has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to build an arena and entertainment district at The Shops at Willow Bend site. The letter was submitted to the Plano City Council and placed on the agenda for a vote during Monday’s meeting.
“This project would present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our franchise,” Stars owner Tom Gaglardi said in a statement. “We eagerly await the vote by the Plano City Council and look forward to continuing the conversation to be part of the redevelopment of The Shops at Willow Bend.”
The Stars’ move has been telegraphed for months, driven by the pursuit of a more sustainable business model and unfolding at the same time as the Mavericks pursued both a new arena and legal action against the Stars.
The Mavericks sued the hockey franchise in late October, alleging the Stars were in breach of a clause in their 1998 franchise agreement that requires their corporate headquarters to be located within the city of Dallas. The Stars, who relocated to Texas in 1993, have played at American Airlines Center since it opened in 2001 and have had their headquarters in Frisco since 2003.
A judge sided with the Mavericks on every significant issue in the case before it reached trial, giving the NBA team control of the arena. The Stars filed an appeal last month.
The roughly 90-acre mall property at 6121 W. Park Blvd. emerged as the favorite to land the NHL franchise when the Stars began exploring options outside Dallas last fall. The Stars spoke to at least eight other cities about relocating, including Frisco, The Colony, Arlington and Fort Worth.
“Plano has built a reputation as a city that welcomes world-class partners and community-focused investment,” Plano Mayor John Muns said in a statement. “The Dallas Stars are an iconic North Texas organization, and we are encouraged by their interest as conversations move forward.”
Plano City Council will be asked to approve several measures in regards to the move. The council will vote on the letter of intent to negotiate the terms for the arena.
The larger mixed-use district, being advanced jointly with Levin Holdings and Cawley Partners and Centennial, could include sports, entertainment, retail, dining and public gathering spaces, centered around the new stadium. The letter of intent includes design plans for the arena.
Under the proposed agreements, the city would own the site and the arena, and enter into an initial 30-year lease agreement with the team. The terms are to be negotiated, according to city documents.
The cost of constructing the arena is estimated around $1 billion or more, according to city documents, and the city plans to contribute $700 million in funding through bonds backed by revenue from a tax increment reinvestment zone.
The 1.4-million-square-foot Shops at Willow Bend, the last enclosed mall built in Texas, opened in 2001. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent by previous owners, the mall has struggled to attract sufficient shoppers and stores.
The most recent plans called for mixed-used development with less retail space. The Neiman Marcus department store at the location is set to close by the beginning of 2027. Another anchor, Macy’s, backed out of the mall earlier this year.
Brad Alberts, the Stars CEO and president, said in the fall that the team would need to begin construction in 2028 or 2029 to be ready for the 2031-32 season.
The 1999 Stanley Cup champion Stars believe the move will unlock new revenue streams that best position the franchise for long-term sustainability, enhance the fan experience and enable them to remain perennial championship contenders. Alberts told The News in October that the team was seeking to build an arena and surrounding entertainment district that would create “365-day revenue.”
That would be “essential to the health of sports and entertainment businesses, especially NHL businesses that depend on local revenue far more than others,” he said.
“I think the biggest problem that we have with staying in Dallas is that we don’t have that. We don’t control any of the real estate outside of the building. We’re looking for that opportunity that can create 365-day-a-year revenue outside and also have an incredible in-venue, in-arena experience.”
In November, Alberts told The News a Collin County home could address four specific financial pain points the team confronts at American Airlines Center. He believes the new arena would enable the franchise to tap into dollars from the mixed-use entertainment development; cut luxury suite inventory in half to 50; innovate sponsorship assets; and increase premium seating inventory by as many as 4,000.
In November, The News asked Alberts whether he believed it was possible to sufficiently address the team’s economic pain points with American Airlines Center as constructed.
“If we’re going to stay in a hockey-only arena [if the Dallas Mavericks leave when the AAC lease expires in 2031], you’ve got to significantly reimagine that arena,” Alberts said. “You’ve got to be prepared to position this arena for the future, not where it’s been — and that’s going to take a significant financial investment in order to do that.”
Alberts made clear that, barring unforeseen large-scale renovations to American Airlines Center, which would likely cost more than half a billion dollars, the Stars believe they need to move or risk being left behind.
Bob Heere, a University of North Texas professor of sports management and director of UNT Sports Innovation Space, said consumer habits and advancing technology have rendered American Airlines Center outdated in the 25 years since it was built.
“American Airlines Center is beautiful, it’s historic, but it’s very limited in meeting the demands of the 21st century,” Heere said.
One primary issue has been the scarcity of premium seating, which for Stars games is located behind the glass and on the suite levels. It affords those fans other perks a growing number of consumers expect: high-end hospitality experiences, enhanced food and beverages and premium club access.
The Stars want fewer luxury suites — which are located between the upper and lower bowls and usually seat 12 to 18 people in their own private space — to create more space for bars, restaurants and social areas.
In a typical year, the Stars generate between $230 million and $245 million in revenue — roughly middle of the pack among NHL teams — team executives told The News.
One NHL document, which the Stars showed The News, details how they significantly lag behind fellow NHL teams in revenue per game from premium seating. Despite the size and affluence of the Dallas-Fort Worth market, the Stars rank 29th out of 32 teams, generating $257,000 per game. That’s less than half the league average of $520,000 per game.
Alberts believes the shortfall points directly to the incongruent match between the turn-of-the-century American Airlines Center and the modern-day demands of the NHL team’s business model.
The Stars would seek to create as many as 4,000 more premium seats in Plano, Alberts said. In turn, the added inventory would require additional in-venue premium clubs.
“Dallas is a premium market,” Alberts said. “We want to be able to meet that expectation, meet that demand.”
Alberts also believes a new arena will enable the franchise to innovate sponsorship assets, thus generating additional revenue. For the 2024-25 season, the Stars had 109 brand partners, with the average deal worth between $380,000 and $445,000, according to data provided to The News by SponsorUnited, a data analytics firm that provides market intelligence on sports sponsorship deals.
Victory Park, the entertainment district surrounding the AAC, doesn’t provide the Stars with revenue because the team does not own the real estate. The Stars harbor ambitions larger than what the Texas Rangers created with their mixed-use district, Texas Live!, in Arlington. Restaurants, apartments and a hotel are on the Stars’ wish list, along with a brick-and-mortar Stars’ Hall of Fame.
In a November interview with The News, Alberts painted a picture of the fan experience he envisioned in a new home.
With a new arena, he said, you could see a lower venue ceiling, have more seats closer to the ice, enjoy more premium club experiences, benefit from more audio and entertainment bells and whistles, as well as high-quality food and beverage offerings both within and surrounding the arena — all coming together for an immersive environment that projects itself as the home of the Stars.
“If we were to create our own immersed environment [in a new arena], you are really going to feel that this is the home of the Stars in a much-improved fashion than what you do now,” Alberts said. “There’s a lot of things — not just how can we generate more money — that would lead to people that love Stars hockey to go, ‘Wow, this is incredible.’”
The Stars’ decision to find a new home comes as their legal wrangling with the Mavericks persists.
In October, the Mavericks filed suit against the Stars in Texas Business Court, alleging the Stars violated their franchise agreement with the city of Dallas that requires their primary headquarters to be located within city limits.
The Mavericks sent the Stars a letter and $110 in cash in October 2024, alerting them of the breach and of their intention to take over the Stars’ interest in Center Operating Company, the joint venture between the franchises that operates American Airlines Center.
The shared-revenue pot includes revenue from third-party events as well as dollars from brands that sponsor both teams. When companies or individuals purchase suites for all American Airlines Center events together — Mavericks’ and Stars’ games and concerts — those dollars are filtered through Center Operating Company before being split 50-50 between the Mavericks and Stars, executives said.
Ten other NHL teams share arenas with NBA teams — Los Angeles, Denver, Detroit, Washington, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Toronto, Boston and Utah — but most of those marriages are not nearly as financially complicated as the one in Dallas.
The Stars filed a counterclaim saying the Mavericks had no right to claim a breach of agreement — only the city could — and that they cannot claim the Stars’ interest in Center Operating Company until a court finds the Stars breached certain obligations owed to the city.
The NHL team later alleged the Mavericks violated their own franchise agreement with the city when they changed their principal location to Las Vegas in 2024 during Mark Cuban’s sale of the team to Miriam Adelson and the Dumont family.
Texas Business Court Judge Bill Whitehill did not side with the Stars on those issues and gave the Mavericks control of AAC as the appeal process plays out.
The city of Dallas has also sided with the Mavericks, according to internal communication between the teams and the city obtained by The News, putting a further strain on the relationship with the Stars. Multiple city officials, however, have publicly stated a commitment to keeping both the Stars and Mavericks in Dallas.
“We value our longtime relationships and their presence in Dallas,” city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said in a statement in October. “We will continue our efforts to ensure the NBA and NHL teams remain in our city where they belong.”
The Stars are the second major professional sports team the city has lost after the Cowboys moved from the Cotton Bowl to Texas Stadium in Irving in 1971 and even farther to AT&T Stadium in Arlington in 2009. The Texas Rangers have never played in Dallas, residing at three different ballparks in Arlington since 1972.
The Mavericks also plan to leave AAC after 2031 and have narrowed their focus to the Valley View Center property, a sprawling 110-acre site at the corner of Preston Road and Interstate 635.
Following the Mavericks’ move to Valley View and the Stars’ to Plano, none of the four major professional sports teams would play their home games downtown.
Staff writer Lilly Kersh contributed to this report.