Arlington’s Big Bet: How Sports and Entertainment Reshaped a City

When I moved to this part of the Metroplex about twenty years ago, Arlington was mostly the place you drove to for a Rangers game or a day at Six Flags. Today it’s one of the most closely watched sports and entertainment destinations in the country, and the story of how that happened is worth knowing whether you live here, are thinking about moving here, or own property nearby.

It started with a theme park and baseball

Arlington’s life as an entertainment town goes back to 1961, when Six Flags Over Texas opened as the very first Six Flags park. Sixty-five years later it’s still investing here. This past July it opened Tormenta Rampaging Run, the world’s first giga dive coaster, with a 309-foot height, a 95-degree drop and a top speed of 87 mph. It’s the park’s biggest addition since Titan opened in 2001, and it anchors a new Spanish-village area of the park.

Arlington’s big-league story began in 1972, when the Washington Senators moved here and became the Texas Rangers. In 1994, the team’s original home, Arlington Stadium, was replaced by a new ballpark. For years, that ballpark and Six Flags Over Texas were the city’s calling cards.

The turning point

The real shift came in 2009, when the $1.3 billion Cowboys Stadium (now AT&T Stadium) opened. Suddenly Arlington wasn’t just a stop on the way to somewhere else. It was hosting a Super Bowl, NCAA Final Fours, college football championships and the biggest concert tours in the world.

Rather than stop there, the city made a deliberate choice: build a district, not just a set of stadiums. Its 2014 Economic Development Strategic Plan called for leveraging those assets to draw continued investment.

Building a destination

What followed was a decade of steady construction through a public-private partnership between the City, the Texas Rangers, The Cordish Companies and Loews Hotels:

• Texas Live! opened in August 2018 between the two stadiums, with restaurants, bars and an outdoor concert venue.
• Live! by Loews, a 300-room hotel, opened in August 2019.
• Globe Life Field, the Rangers’ new climate-controlled ballpark, opened in 2020.
• Loews Arlington Hotel and Convention Center, an 888-room hotel, opened in early 2024.
• One Rangers Way, a luxury apartment development, added full-time residents to the district.

Together, the partnership’s investment in new development tops $2.4 billion.

More than games

In March 2025, the National Medal of Honor Museum opened in the district. Arlington was chosen after a national search that included Denver, New York City, San Diego and Washington, D.C. The 100,000-square-foot museum tells the personal stories of the men and one woman who have received the nation’s highest award for valor, and its lower rotunda is free to the public.

That museum matters beyond tourism. It gives the district a reason to visit on a quiet Tuesday, not just on game day.

On the world stage

This past summer, AT&T Stadium hosted nine FIFA World Cup matches, including a semifinal on July 14. That was more matches than any other venue in the tournament.

Racing in the streets

In March 2026, IndyCar came to town for the first Grand Prix of Arlington, run on a 2.73-mile, 14-turn street course laid out through the Entertainment District itself. The inaugural race drew sold-out crowds, and racing writers called it a new standard for how a city hosts an open-wheel street race. It was a big moment for Texas, too. The state had struggled to hold onto top-tier racing, and IndyCar had dropped Texas from its schedule entirely in 2023.

The race also showed what all that earlier investment made possible. The hotels, parking, restaurants and walkable streets built over the past decade turned the district into a place that could host an event like this almost overnight.

Downtown and the university

The turnaround isn’t limited to the stadiums. Downtown Arlington has been rebuilt piece by piece:

• The Levitt Pavilion opened in 2008 and now draws more than 120,000 people a year to free outdoor concerts.
• The George W. Hawkes Downtown Library, a $30 million, 80,000-square-foot building, opened in 2018 as part of a City Center project that won a state planning excellence award.
• UT Arlington holds R1 status, the top tier of research universities in the country.
• The city and UTA launched RAPID in 2021, the first program in the country to add on-demand self-driving vehicles to an existing public rideshare service.

What’s coming next

The momentum hasn’t slowed:

• Lincoln Square is being transformed into Anthem, a 43-acre walkable retail and dining center expected to open in early 2028. Nine of its first ten signed tenants are new to Arlington.
• A third Loews hotel, with 513 rooms, is planned to replace the Sheraton near the district, with an expected opening in 2028.

What it means for living here

Two decades of investment have helped Arlington develop into a vibrant, fun place to live, with more to do close to home than ever before.

Arlington spent two decades turning a ballpark and a theme park into a destination people plan trips around. It’s a good reminder that a city’s story is never finished.

For what is opening right now across this corner of the Metroplex, see what’s new and coming to Mansfield, Arlington, and Grand Prairie. Six Flags and the Rangers both turn up in things to do with kids.

If you’re interested in property in Arlington, I’m happy to help.