The Arlington City Council held a special meeting on March 4, 2025, beginning with a closed executive session at 12:30 PM under Chapter 551 of the Texas Government Code to discuss legal issues related to executive orders and economic development incentives. The open session convened at 2:40 PM and included a work session, discussion of several city initiatives, committee reports, and a legislative update. The meeting adjourned at 4:42 PM. No formal votes were taken; all items were for discussion and direction.
Okay, we're gonna go in call the afternoon session of the city council meeting to order to be government code for five one point zero seven one two or two sessions. Okay, we're going to go ahead and call the afternoon session back to order. We're going to move on down to the work session. I want to take a few things out of order here just a little bit. So, and then all the bids went out to make sure we got some good owners that could come in and meet the vision of what we had as a city at Lincoln Square. Given the situation of where we were at and where Lincoln Square was. It's uh as the mayor said, we've been working together with uh the city manager and Lindsay, Molly, all the folks at the city to try to deliver the very best project we can. Um at what is the old Lincoln Square now, Anthem. So we're gonna give you a little update. Let's make sure I know how to do this. All right. So uh as the mayor said, we were brought in because we are a placemaking-centric mixed-use uh developer operator. We're 20 minutes from here. We have uh mutual friends, and this is our home market, and and after meeting with the mayor and city manager and and staff, they they thought we would be a good partner to carry uh Lincoln Square forward, and we're glad to be here. These are some of our Texas projects that you see on the screen. Um when we kick this off, we always we have a uh an adage at trademark is we're we're learners, not knowers. Um, a lot of developers come in and they they will tell you all they know and they'll tell you what they're gonna do for you. And we try to start by listening, and we had a lot of community engagement. We talked to the council staff, um, we did a consumer engagement survey, we talked to lots of business owners, we met with the UTA president, all kinds of other institutions. Um obviously talked to our tenants, talked to a lot of area brokers of retail and office and hotel and hotel developers. And we got a lot of information. We heard they wanted more green space, they wanted an updated look and experience, they wanted fun activity, social events, they wanted better elevated stores and restaurants, obviously, in a family-friendly environment, and they wanted a mix of uses, and that's still the plan. And all of that is what what we do every day, anyway. We really don't do anything that doesn't include that. Um, it's just not it's not what we do. And in those uh early meetings with city staff, uh, a lot of you folks came to our work session, our design workshop, and we were told, as the mayor mentioned in his opening remarks to dream big, push density, go for it. We want we want this to be special, and we'll we'll do everything we can to incentivize that. So we work together along those uh lines. And we came up together that first few weeks with a vision, and it hasn't changed at all. It's to transform the old Lincoln Square shopping center into a vibrant open-air mixed-use gathering place for the community and a modern gateway to North Arlington. It's it was uh in no uncertain terms told to us how important this site is. It's kind of the front door to the Arlington Entertainment District. And our goal is to make Anthem our the new name for Lincoln Square, a high quality, walkable, amenitized, high design retail and mixed-use project. And that's still the plan, even though the plans have changed a little. So this is a side-by-side of the plan that um we were we uh originally the original plan that we worked on with the city that was shooting big as far as density. Uh you'll see on the left, and on the right is the is the new plan. What's changed? And you'll see the diagram is is very, very similar. The the walkable town center piece is very, very similar as you'll see on the right side of the main entrance that that uh dead ends into studio movie grill. The difference is the apartments on the plan left, which is the original plan, the approved development plan. There was multi-family in that sort of top left corner, which is from I-30 to studio movie grill. Um, and that that was the that was the big uh difference in the plans. And today we have a two-story um uh retailer that's very serious. We're trading LOIs with a two-story retailer to go in that spot. Both plans had a big structured parking garage in that location, and and it parks uh it marks the walkable town center with the public green that's still in the plan that is very similar to what was there, really hadn't changed hardly at all there. Um, you'll see the other difference is we are keeping one of the Lincoln Square buildings. Um it's this gray one. Let's see if this clicker works. No, I could just walk over this right here. We're gonna keep that building because one of the unique things about Lincoln Square buying it at this point, a bunch of the tenants have long-term leases and they have control areas.