Plano City Council to consider tax election for Stars arena after approved traffic study

Plano City Council will vote to consider a special election for taxes to be implemented into the Dallas Stars arena planned at The Shops at Willow Bend at a meeting Aug. 10.

The council also approved a preliminary traffic study for the Willow Bend area at a meeting July 27.

The gist

Plano officials will consider a special election for residents to vote for the following tax options to be implemented to help finance the Stars arena, per city documents:

• Short-term motor vehicle rental tax not to exceed 5%
• Short-term hotel occupancy tax not to exceed 2% of the room price
• Event parking tax not to exceed $3 per vehicle
• Admissions tax not to exceed 10% of each ticket price
• Venue facility use tax not to exceed $5,000 per game on each member of a major league team that plays a professional sports game at the venue

Texas Local Government Code allows local municipalities to call a special election for residents to consider taxes for its revenue to go toward costs from the proposed venue.

Also of note

Plano City Council awarded $320,000 to Fehr & Peers to conduct a traffic study for preliminary considerations on the Stars arena.

The study will provide the city more insight on potential transportation impacts and consider strategies to mitigate them, per city documents. Funds for the study come from the city’s Economic Development Incentive Fund.

Director of Engineering Caleb Thornhill said the study will analyze 28 intersections in the region and eight Dallas North Tollway ramp locations under four traffic scenarios:

• Current traffic
• Projected traffic without the arena
• Projected traffic with the arena
• Projected traffic with mitigation options

Thornhill said arena projections will operate under the assumption of 18,000-22,000 seats sold for a 7 p.m. game in 2031, when the Stars’ current lease at American Airlines Center will expire, per previous reporting.

Josh Peterman, a Dallas office leader for Fehr & Peers, said the scope of the study will be in West Plano and stops at Parkwood Boulevard.

“We’re going to focus this study on the immediate project area for specificity and it’s just the scope of work that we negotiated with the city that we can do in a certain time period,” Peterman said.

The city is considering a future contract modification to further expand the study after receiving preliminary data, Thornhill said.

“We do not have a site plan for the development, we don’t have a circulation plan, so there’s a whole lot of assumptions that we’re working behind,” he said. “As we get further along if this process continues to move forward, then we’ll expand that analysis.”