How about home-sweet-home smack center in Arlington's sports stadium?

by O.K. Carter, Arlington Report
August 7, 2024

It’s no great trick to find a new apartment complex under construction in Arlington where multifamily occupancy is at a red-hot 94%, but few of those attract as much attention as One Rangers Way. It’s being built smack in the middle of the Entertainment District on the banks of Mark Holtz Lake.

The partners in the project, Cordish Companies and the Texas Rangers, are making a multimillion dollar bet that some people will relish living a three-minute walk from Globe Life Field or two blocks from AT&T Stadium. Or across the street from the soon-to-open National Medal of Honor Museum or the Arlington Museum of Art. It’s also a quick 20-minute commute to either Fort Worth or Dallas via nearby Interstate 30.

They’re also wagering that those future residents will be both willing and capable of paying above-market rates for the privilege of living steps away from a Rangers or Cowboys game, or maybe a Stevie Nicks concert. It’s not uncommon for the Entertainment District to host 100,000 or more assorted eventgoers at the area’s various venues in a day.

It’s definitely not a low-traffic environment, but for the sports enthusiast, it’s a bonanza. Besides the Rangers and Cowboys, nearby Choctaw Stadium — a 100-yard walk from the apartments — hosts pro rugby, soccer, and UFL football, as well as assorted high school and collegiate football games.

Not that One Rangers Way is an untried concept. See existing Cordish enterprises like One Cardinal Way in St. Louis next to Busch Stadium, or One Light, Two Light, and Three Light in downtown Kansas City.

One Rangers Way basics: It’s 300 units and eight stories — that’s skyscraper height in vertically challenged Arlington — with both furnished and unfurnished units ranging from 444-square-foot studios to one-and-two-bedroom units, and a cluster of eight almost 1,500-square-foot primo penthouses on the top three floors. A sweeping pool and recreation area is a nicely private four floors up. Practically every amenity is named after some famous Texas Rangers ballplayer, and the artwork scattered through the complex will be decidedly baseball oriented. It’s all somewhat hotel-like, less the room service.

The price tag will not be insignificant. The smallest studio rent starts, in apartment marketing parlance, in the $1,500s, and from there the monthly tab escalates up to the $4,000s for those penthouses. Plus a $500 deposit. Plus an application fee. Plus renters insurance. Plus another $500 if the prospective tenant wants to bring Fido along, with leases running anywhere from six months to two years. And no, utilities are not included. Parking is in an attached multilevel garage and, yes, there’s space for guests. There’s a boatload of amenities worth checking out.

Don’t load the U-Haul just yet. Though leasing is underway and there’s a demo unit, actual move-in residency won’t start until mid-January, presumably after the Rangers win a second World Series but before the Cowboys begin playoffs en route to the Super Bowl — hypothetically. Or optimistically.

Just by way of reference, the average apartment monthly cost in Arlington in 2023 was