Rendering of the Neyland Entertainment District in Knoxville, Tennessee. [Image: Arctos Partners]

The Dallas Mavericks recently announced plans to build a new arena and entertainment district at the former Valley View Mall site in North Dallas. A day later, the Dallas Stars announced their own plans to build an arena and entertainment district in Plano. If you spotted a trend, you’re right—arenas aren’t enough anymore. Sports franchises are thinking bigger by creating destinations, not just arenas and stadiums. And now a Dallas investment firm is making its own move into that hot sector.

Dallas-based Arctos Sports, the largest institutional investor in pro sports franchises, is partnering with Arlington’s RVX Ventures and Chicago-based Magellan Development Group to launch a new platform targeting the fast-growing sports-anchored development sector. Magellan is a real estate development platform specializing in mixed-use entertainment districts.

Arctos Sports—part of Arctos Partners, which was acquired earlier this yearby KKR & Co. in a deal valued at $1.4 billion—said the platform’s inaugural project is Neyland Entertainment District, a new development spanning the Tennessee River waterfront adjacent to Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Enhancing gamedays while creating ‘a year-round destination’

That first project is structured as a public-private partnership with the university, Arctos said, and will feature around 100,000 square feet of entertainment space alongside a 24-story hotel and residences, along with a private members club. The Neyland district is designed “to enhance the gameday experience while creating a year-round destination for the Knoxville community,” Arctos added.

Arctos is the majority equity investor in the Knoxville project and is participating as a general partner alongside a sponsor team led by RVX, Magellan, and Dixon Greenwood.

Arctos Partner Chad Hutchinson called Neyland Stadium “an iconic venue in college sports” and said his firm is grateful to the University of Tennessee “for their shared vision and collaboration in bringing this dynamic entertainment district to life.”

“We see significant opportunity at the convergence of live sports and real estate, and we wanted to be more than a capital provider in this space,” Hutchinson added in a statement. “RVX and Magellan have the track records and the operational know-how to deliver on complex projects like this, and together we can define how sports-anchored districts are conceived, built and operated.”

Arctos noted that universities, pro sports organizations, and municipalities alike “are increasingly seeking to transform the areas surrounding their venues into year-round destinations.” Delivering these districts at scale requires significant capital, large-scale development expertise, and hands-on experience programming and operating entertainment venues, the firm added—capabilities the new partnership is designed to bring together under a single platform.

Seeing compelling opportunities in ‘experiential real estate’

RVX Principal Taylor Gray said sports-anchored entertainment districts “represent one of the most compelling opportunities in experiential real estate today.”

“With Arctos and Magellan as partners,” he added, “we’re building a platform with the expertise, relationships and capital needed to deliver transformative projects for universities, teams and communities across the country.”

The Neyland Entertainment District is intended to be just the first of multiple opportunities across the collegiate and professional sports landscape for the new venture. The partnership’s model “spans sourcing, capitalization, development and operations,” Arctos said, allowing teams to take projects from concept through execution under a single structure.

“This project will be one of the great sports-anchored destinations in the country,” Magellan’s president, J.R. Berger, said in a statement.. “It has it all: a passionate fanbase, legendary venue and a university committed to doing something transformative.”

Berger said his company has spent three decades “reshaping neighborhoods and creating places that endure.”

“Neyland Entertainment District will set a new standard for what development adjacent to major sports assets can look like,” he added.

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