Council to Revise Dallas Wings Deal After Delays to Practice Facility Delivery
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Major hiccups related to the planned Dallas Wings practice facility at Joey Georgusis Park have the city’s agreement with the WNBA team coming back before council members on Wednesday.
With the Mavericks-City Hall drama overshadowing so much other real estate news, we missed the Wings enduring significant city-involved complications in stride as they navigate their move to the Big D. And what better welcome to Dallas than project delays? So, let’s catch up on this little saga.
The franchise agreed in 2024 to relocate from Arlington to a renovated Dallas Memorial Auditorium with a new practice facility next door. The two-building, 15-year deal folded into the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center redevelopment. A year later, though, it was announced that the FIFA World Cup International Broadcast Center would be hosted by Dallas at the convention center, which obviously complicated construction and move-in timelines. Work on the arena won’t be completed until at least 2027.
Officials ended up deciding to build the new practice facility, which enjoyed a ceremonial groundbreaking last September, at Joey Georgusis Park in West Oak Cliff. At the event, City Manager Kimberly Tolbert promised the city would deliver the facility by the spring of 2026, telling the team, “We want you to hold us accountable.”
As it turns out, that project has also suffered from delays. It won’t open until next year either. The delays are coming with additional costs, pushing the bill $27 million over the roughly $54 million in taxpayer money budgeted for the practice facility and forcing the Wings to continue playing their home games at UT Arlington’s College Park Center this coming season and maybe the next.
Some of the reasons for the practice facility delays were scrutinized by council members last month, with officials acknowledging the ordeal has been a bad look for a city currently trying to keep its NBA and NHL franchises from moving out of town. Council Member Cara Mendelsohn (District 12) called it “another failed real estate project that we have not delivered on time or on budget.”
The city’s track record has been spotty when it comes to real estate projects, to say the least. Permanent supportive housing projects have languished, and the infamous Lemon on Stemmons remains one of the city’s most embarrassing (and ironic) mishaps in recent years. The fallout from the Stemmons debacle led to efforts by Tolbert to improve accountability and processes.
According to the city’s latest budget accountability report, work is being done to refine a formal solicitation to reward a contract for the development of a citywide real estate master plan so officials can better manage the city’s assets.
But back to the Wings fiasco. It appears a few factors were at play. Rosa Fleming, director of Convention & Event Services, said the WNBA implemented league-wide changes to practice facility requirements after the original project was scoped, requiring subsequent design updates. However, there were disagreements between staff and the project manager — McKissack & McKissack — during the value engineering process that tanked the timeline. Fleming said staff were “not satisfied with the [project manager’s] work” and that there has since been a change in company personnel following talks with the owner.
McKissack & McKissack serves as project manager for both the practice facility and the renovation of Dallas Memorial Auditorium. Fleming said they want to remove the firm from the former but still retain it for the latter pending a cure period. Some council members wondered why the company wasn’t being taken off both projects.
Council Member Chad West (District 1) said he wanted to discuss the delay issues with McKissack & McKissack publicly.
“They’re still under contract to develop the arena, which is the second part of our agreement with the Wings,” he said. “I share my colleagues’ concerns that we’re still paying these people. Are they going to meet those deadlines? I’m not hopeful.”
Staff’s proposed agreement updating the Wings deal would dump McKissack & McKissack from the practice facility component and make the Dallas Wings the official developer for the project. The WNBA team would assume responsibility for the $27 million in additional costs, but they would also receive a developer fee of either 4% of the actual project cost or $3.24 million (whichever ends up being less) and a delay reimbursement of $653,000. The Wings would also agree not to sue the city over the damages it suffered from the delay.
“Dallas is good for the Wings and the Wings are good for Dallas,” Wings president and CEO Greg Bibb told The Dallas Morning News late last month. “How our situation plays out will help other businesses — whether sports teams, for-profit enterprises, or charitable organizations — better understand what it means to do long-term mutually beneficial partnerships with the city.”
Bibb also sits on the advisory board of the nonprofit Dallas Sports Commission, which works to attract and promote major sports events in the Dallas area.
In a bid to recoup the costs they would be incurring, the Wings are seeking to acquire the naming rights to the new practice facility. Any proceeds from those rights would see the Wings receiving 30% and the city 70%, the latter of which would be directed to development at Joey Georgusis Park. The Dallas Park & Recreation Board will be considering the proposal at its meeting on Thursday.
