HANA hosts SPECIAL FIFA info meeting
Years of Planning for Arlington's Soccer Summer
On May 11, during a special meeting at Grace Lutheran Church on Park Row, HANA invited deputy city manager Jennifer Wichmann to present the city's plans for all of the logistics involved in processing such a huge, repetitive influx of visitors over these nine matches. Here's a summary of what we learned:
1. For several years, the city manager's office has been asking peers in former host cities around the world what worked for them and what didn't. It quickly became apparent that although we have no comprehensive local transit system - our largest tourism drawback - we do have one of the world's best event venues. Whether you agreed to its public financing or not, AT&T Stadium is internationally recognized as being among the best ever built, we've been using it successfully for years, and city engineers already know how to process up to 100,000 people per event through it.
2. City planners don't really expect much of an impact from fans outside of an activity district roughly bounded by our existing Entertainment District. Jennifer seriously doubted any of us south of the railroad tracks would notice much of a change to our daily routines - except if we wanted to try going north on Collins on match days.
3. The city has cancelled all vacations for police, fire, and EMT employees during the FIFA period. Full, normal staffing for first responders is expected to be maintained for the entire city during this time, with additional first responder staffing from various other agencies, including other Metroplex cities, the state, and the federal government. The Secret Service, FBI, ICE, and other agencies are already active during almost every event held in our Entertainment District, and our city coordinates well with all of those agencies.
4. Homeowners across the city are worried about folks outside of Arlington's established short-term-rental zone (basically, the Entertainment District) listing their houses as AirBnB's. The city already has a robust and legally-tested policy on STRs and regularly trolls STR listing sites looking for scofflaws, which it will continue to do. Jennifer did warn that the city's tolerance for rogue STRs is pretty thin right now because they want World Cup fans to have an exceptionally good experience. Usually, non-compliant STRs receive a grace period to get into compliance, but basically starting now, that grace period has been suspended. So, a word to the wise...
5. Cities across the Metroplex are concerned about international visitors accustomed to walking everywhere getting lost/dehydrated on foot in our Texas summer heat. Arlington, for example, is organizing patrols to literally go out and look for pedestrians who thought they could easily hike across miles of scorching pavement without enough water.
6. On match days, a temporary "bus bridge" will run from Centerport near DFW Airport to the Entertainment District. Although Arlington likes to promote itself as "Fun Central" even Jennifer admits the bulk of visiting fans will likely be concentrating on downtown districts in Dallas and Fort Worth. There will be digital advertising for Arlington's downtown, however, and Randy Ford of Gilligan's is planning on his usual event shuttle service.
7. No street closures are planned except the ones that already occur during events in the Entertainment District. All of the parking lots around AT&T Stadium are going to be closed to parking; however, businesses around the stadium are allowed to procure event parking permits, and some may close on match days so their parking lots can generate revenue (check with your favorite restaurant/retailer if they're near the stadium).
8. Many of us have heard about the boisterous parades fans from some countries like to hold on match days. Fans from the Netherlands are even shipping a double-decker bus here for their parade. However, none of those parades will be held outside of the Entertainment District.
9. Texas Rangers baseball games are going to happen as scheduled during this time, and Major League Baseball worked with FIFA so that games and matches happen on different days.
10. All of the information Jennifer covered is provided on the city's website here: https://www.arlingtontx.gov/.../Special.../World-Cup-2026
World Cup Soccer is Coming to Arlington in June
Starting on June 14 this summer, Arlington's AT&T Stadium will host nine soccer matches for the FIFA World Cup. The last local game, a semi-final match, will be on July 14. During this time, hundreds of thousands of soccer fans are expected to descend on our city. Teams already scheduled to compete are coming from Japan, the Netherlands, England, Croatia, Argentina, Austria, and Jordan.
hana works to recognize historic center street trail
There's More to Center Street than Meets the Eye
For a number of years, the Arlington Historical Society has endeavored to recognize the history that Center Street represents to not just Arlington, but the entire Metroplex. Now, HANA has joined in that effort with Arlington’s Parks Department.
Several HANA board members recently met with the city to implement a soft refresh of property at Center Street and Pioneer Parkway and install two historical markers.
Historical markers, you may ask?
Turns out, many of us haven’t been aware of how today’s Center Street came to exist. It's not the ordinary suburban thoroughfare it appears to be.
Long before Dallas or Fort Worth ever existed, Native Americans charted a path along the route that became today’s Center Street. They traveled strategically along a ridge across higher ground parallel to what today we call Johnson Creek. Indeed, the next time you drive or walk along Center Street south of Park Row, you’ll see how the thoroughfare is literally just a little bit higher than most of the cross-streets.
The Native Americans’ path went through a wooded Cross Timbers area from roughly today’s Arkansas Lane up to the West Fork of the Trinity River (today’s River Legacy Park area). A particular feature of their trail was the naturally-occuring low-water crossing at what is now the pair of Center and Mesquite Street bridges.
As early as 1687, European explorers and traders are believed to have arrived. They soon relied on the same pathway that Native Americans had already charted. Rangers and soldiers would eventually come and trek what became Center Street to get between Bird’s Fort and Marrow Bone Spring.
Bird's Fort was an early military outpost located at the northeastern corner of what we know today as the Viridian mixed-use development. Marrow Bone Spring was at the corner of today's Matlock Road and Arkansas Lane.
Although it survives only as a small city park, Marrow Bone Spring is an important historical site. Extensive research by the Arlington Historical Society credits Marrow Bone Spring with hosting the 1843 “Treaty of Bird’s Fort” between the Republic of Texas and a confederacy of ten indigenous Native American tribes. That treaty guaranteed a relatively peaceful trading relationship that helped facilitate the growth of not just Arlington, but all of North Central Texas.
In 1852, Colonel Middle Tate Johnson founded Johnson Station south of Marrow Bone Spring, which flourished as a trading post until 1876, when Arlington was established as a stop on the Texas and Pacific Railroad. One of the railroad depot’s loading docks still exists at Center and Front streets.
In 1854, a settler named James Hyden obtained a land grant along the trail between today's Park Row and Pioneer Parkway, where in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Elm Shadows and Mill Creek subdivisions were developed.
Meanwhile, settlers had begun farming blackland prairie homesteads farther south from Marrow Bone Spring and Johnson Station, even down past where I-20 now runs. They used the ancient Native American pathway to bring their goods to market in town, first to Marrow Bone Spring and Johnson Station, and then to mills, cotton gins, and the railhead in Arlington.
Today, at Pioneer Parkway, a small, triangular-shaped parcel of empty land remains, passed by hundreds of motorists every day who have no idea it represents some of the last open space from Arlington’s earliest, pre-settlement generations. Before our popular Entertainment District, before General Motors, before the railroad, before Bird’s Fort, and before European explorers.
Indeed, the social, economic, historical, and cultural diversity represented by Center Street is surprisingly broad. Maybe it's never been glamorous - it's always been a working transit trail. But Center Street represents one of the most extensively-utilized human pathways in this part of Texas. And if you think about it, that’s pretty remarkable.
All this is why the Arlington Historical Society has been awarded two plaques to honor Center Street’s trail. And since this is in our neighborhood, HANA has joined with them to arrange for their public display, so more of us can learn about how unique our area is.
Not just to Arlington, but for the entire Metroplex. And here we’ve been, living next to such history all along! Our neighborhood really is the “heart” of Arlington.
- Special thanks to Barbara Salser and Floreen Henry
Arlington's Parks Department will be adding historical markers for this remnant of empty space.