when that didn\u2019t work, as a hockey-only facility.<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThe Stars never wanted to leave AAC,\u201d he said. \u201cOur plan, our ownership\u2019s plan, always was to stay there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alberts also said the Stars’ preference was to remain at AAC alongside the Mavericks.\u00a0\u201cWe wanted to stay together with the Mavs,\u201d he said. \u201cThey didn’t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas spent more than a year in talks trying to keep the Stars. Alberts said the city never found an answer at the center of those discussions: how to give the franchise room to grow beyond the AAC.<\/p>\n
When the negotiations were not progressing, the Mavericks flagged that the Stars had breached their 1998 contract by building their offices in Frisco. The city later affirmed the breach of contract and appeared to have sided with the basketball team ahead of a potential legal fight. That was in October 2024.<\/p>\n
The turning point<\/p>\n
In November, Alberts said got help from a friend, Mark Masinter, chairman of global retail for real estate firm Newmark.<\/p>\n
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Alberts told him the Stars might need to find a new home. Masinter said he suggested the Willow Bend property.<\/p>\n
Because a growing portion of the team’s fan base lives in the northern subrubs, Masinter told Alberts that Plano would be “a remarkable location for a new arena.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
He connected Alberts with Steven Levin, CEO of Dallas-based Centennial Real Estate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Levin, at the time, had purchased Plano\u2019s Shops at\u00a0Willow Bend to create a mixed-use mecca, but a conversation gave Levin a better idea: turning the mall site into a sports and entertainment district project.<\/p>\n
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A rendering for the proposed new development for the planned Dallas Stars arena and entertainment complex.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Centennial<\/p>\n
Alberts said he hadn’t considered Willow Bend as a potential arena location. But the prospect offered a fix to a problem the Stars said had complicated their future at AAC. The team wanted greater control of surrounding real estate and more opportunities to generate revenue beyond game nights.<\/p>\n
The sports business has changed. Teams increasingly rely on year-round entertainment districts and attractions that generate revenue well beyond game nights.<\/p>\n
Luxury seating, premium suites and new amenities designed to keep fans engaged and spending money are among the industry’s biggest priorities.<\/p>\n
For that to work in Dallas, Alberts said they needed to purchase properties for expansion beyond the AAC footprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst of all, you have to have someone that wants to sell it to us,\u201d he said. The team owners also would have to come up with enough capital to even purchase what\u2019s available. \u201cIt’s an enormous price tag,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don’t control any of the real estate down there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alberts said the challenge dates to the creation of Victory Park, when the arena and surrounding real estate ended up under separate ownership.\u00a0\u201cThe issue was created 25 years ago when the separation occurred,\u201d he said. \u201cVictory was separated from the arena.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the arrangement complicated efforts to create the kind of entertainment district the Stars wanted around AAC.\u00a0\u201cThis has been kind of the centerpiece of the discussions with Dallas,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Plano’s pitch<\/p>\n
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The Crate & Barrel store with the closed Macy\u2019s department story are seen in an aerial view of The Shops at Willow Bend on Feb. 5, 2026, in Plano.<\/p>\n
Smiley N. Pool\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n
While Dallas tried to resolve those issues, Plano got to work.<\/p>\n
From the time he first met Plano officials in November 2024, Alberts said the city moved quickly. By the following June, Plano had put together a public financing proposal worth about $700 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s unbelievable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Plano came back to the Stars within six months with funding strategies.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt’s seamless to me. It’s how it should be,\u201d Alberts said. \u201cI mean, just professional, timely. Everyone, council, staff all united behind it, communication crystal clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they said when they said they were interested, they said what they would get done. They got it done,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Asked whether Dallas had shown the same level of communication, Alberts declined to answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo comment,\u201d he said. \u201cYou guys can figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even as the Plano proposal advanced, the Stars continued hearing from people who wanted the team to stay and reviewing other sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s been a lot of overtures for over a year,\u201d Alberts said. \u201cThere’s been a lot of discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n
But moving to Willow Bend, clustered along the growing Dallas North Tollway corridor, places the proposed arena closer to many of the companies and fans who support the Stars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a lot of ways, what happened was an unbelievable gift to us in the franchise,\u201d Alberts said.<\/p>\n
Staff writer Nick Wooten contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Levin, Centennial founder and CEO, and Brad Alberts, Stars president and CEO, speak with The News in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-329001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}