Sports: AAC’s State of the Union

WHERE’S IT AAC: The American Airlines Center emerges from it’s terrible twos for better or worse, depending on whom you ask.

When the $420 million American Airlines Center opened, critics were numerous, vocal, and easy to find. Mayor Laura Miller, who was a City Council member at the time, was an outspoken opponent of the financing of the center, especially because taxpayers had to pitch in $125 million. Dallas Morning News architecture critic David Dillon was unimpressed, saying that the building sends the message “that [Dallas] is more comfortable with the past than the present, that it is better to be big than bold.” As recently as March, the City Council’s frustration with the lack of surrounding development boiled up again when Urban Related Development, formerly known as Palladium, announced that it could not move forward with a proposed project—namely $600 million worth of mixed-use development, including 300,000 square feet of retail—in the dirt hole that stands on the downtown side of the AAC.

But now, as it enters its third season of use as the home venue for the Mavericks and the Stars, public sentiment has shifted somewhat. The building itself seems to have won over as many fans as teams that play there. The development plans have renewed vigor after Hillwood’s new partner, Gatehouse Capital, announced a relatively more modest project that includes a W Hotel, condos, and retail and office space. The American Airlines Center’s popularity has outweighed the critics’ concerns. Or has it?

We asked around to find out what people think of the AAC now that the newness has worn off, the sticker shock has faded away, and the city’s long-term relationship with the building has settled in.

David Schwarz
Architect of the AAC

“I think everyone else’s thoughts are much more important than mine. It was a building that was designed for the people, and if the people like it, then it’s a success. … We want our building to last a long, long time. We want it to be something that the city and citizens embrace and really have a strong emotional attachment to for a long, long time. From the responses I hear, people really like it. That’s the most important thing. … I understand that my clients have timed their completion of the arena at an unfortunate time of the development cycle, and there’s not a lot of need for most of the uses they’ve contemplated around the arena. I’m really looking forward to the time when the arena is part of a dense urban fabric, and I’m sure that time will come.”

Dale Hansen
Sportscaster, WFAA-TV Channel 8

“I’ve never heard of anybody who sat in the nosebleed seats anyplace and thought they were any good. I’m not sure what the definition for a good nosebleed seat would be. They’re expensive, as is everything in America nowadays, and I think there’s probably a quasi-complaint there, but my argument would simply be, ’Well, how do you fix that?’ You gotta have X number of seats. I’ve heard people say, ’Gee they’re charging a lot of money for these really bad seats.’ Well, don’t buy them. Look this up: it’s not in the Constitution that we’re guaranteed access to a Mavericks game. The ticket prices will come down when people stop buying the tickets.”

Daryl Reaugh
Stars commentator

“[The ice at the AAC] is an enormous upgrade over what [the Stars] were used to playing on in the old building, which just sort of resembled ice. The surface isn’t the problem. They’ve had more issues, I think, with the boards, and the bounciness on the bottom areas of the boards. It fluctuates with how busy the building is.

“It was a shock for a lot of people to go from what was arguably the loudest and most intimidating building in the league for other teams to a beautiful, palatial building. Obviously, if you stick in 150 suites and some restaurants, you’re going to lose some of the intimacy.”

Marty Turco
Goaltender, Dallas Stars

“The American Airlines Center is a great building because it combines beauty with a great deal of class, and the crowd makes it an intimidating atmosphere. We’ve had almost 240 sellouts in a row, including every game since we moved into the AAC, and visiting teams know that Dallas is not an easy place to come in and get a win. The facilities are absolutely top-notch, and that allows us to give our best effort on the ice. When you have a first-class building like we do, there are no excuses [for not playing] your best.”

Ron Kirk
Former mayor of Dallas

“I had a lot of friends on the other side of this [debate], remarkably. I mean, obviously, I fought with them, but one of them called me the other day. Apparently he was on his way in from out of town and he said, ’Kirk, I gotta tell you. I drove by the American Airlines Center. (And this was back in the middle of hockey season.) The parking lot was full, and there were cars all around. Given that it’s the middle of Dallas with nothing else going on, I gotta admit that it was the right thing to do.’

“At the end of the day, in all our efforts as we struggled to bring life to downtown, it’s just one piece of the puzzle. But it was a good part of the puzzle. You’ve got 4 million people a year coming down to the center city to go to events at the arena, people that otherwise wouldn’t come downtown.

“Just from a financial standpoint, that the city capped its investment at $125 million and we got a more than $400 million stadium, it’s proven to be a very good deal. I think the development is always a challenge around these arenas. Developers tend to overpromise during the excitement of the campaign. But I believe the energy going on in the Uptown area ultimately gives it a much better chance to be successful than we had at Reunion. When I made the decision to promote the thing, I was gambling solely on getting that arena built, knowing we’d have 200 nights a year with something going on in that building and hoping, obviously, that the other development would come true.”

Brian Johnson
Founder of AAC-FORCE, an AAC fan-advocacy group

“By choice, my wife and I had front-row balcony seats at Reunion, and I wouldn’t have traded those seats for anything. They were absolutely outstanding. You got a great view of the ice, but you were still intimate with the game. [At the AAC] my seats went up significantly as far as height, and we were shifted down to the goal line when we were at the blue line at Reunion. So we were moved up, back, and over, and [the cost of] our seats went up 12 percent. When you cannot, from the front row on the balcony, read the names on the backs of jerseys, that’s a problem. …

“They gave us a preview of our seats before the season started, before it was even open, and I was livid. One of the managers was pretty indignant, and I went to a [message] board and was finding a lot of people with the same concerns. So we just kind of got together and built that group called AAC-FORCE (Fans Organized Regarding Center Experience) and really rode hard doing negotiations, putting little groups together, putting panels together, and things were getting done. Things were definitely getting done. More restrooms upstairs, for instance.

“For me personally, after nine years as a season-ticket holder, my wife and I didn’t renew this year. It was just a personal thing. The price value, for that place, for the AAC, was just no longer there. Everything is catered to the Friends of Tom (Hicks), as many of us call them, the corporate customers. Nothing is catered to the upstairs crowd. Upstairs, you’re just absent from the crowd.”

Craig Miller
Co-host of Dunham & Miller, Sportsradio 1310
The Ticket (KTCK-AM)

“From an atmosphere standpoint, I think it’s very clinical, very antiseptic, very cold. I don’t like the gray seating. I don’t like that the fans aren’t right on top of the court or the ice. I had season tickets up in the nosebleed seats—and they really were nosebleed seats—and I could barely tell which team was which. The sound in there isn’t as good as Reunion. The Reunion ceiling is lower, and the acoustics were much better. The sound in the AAC gets swallowed up. That’s why they have to pipe [crowd noise] in.

“The things I like about it: I guess I kind of like the high-tech feel of it. I like the scoreboard. I like all the different restaurants and bars. I think that makes for a pretty cool experience. Underneath it, the locker rooms and the training facilities are just ridiculously great. That’s something Reunion can’t compare on.”

Brad Mayne
President and CEO of Center Operating Company

“There were brand-new things that fans had to deal with. Fans had been going to Reunion Arena for two decades. You bring them in here, and they were used to the old building. Now they’ve got the new building and different things to consider and deal with. The great news is, we’ve had all those challenges, and we were able to overcome them and get them behind us. We’ve had two fantastic years. …

“Now it’s been around for two years, so people are used to the facility. We’re stepping up all of our operations here for better service. We’ve held a couple of focus groups with our suite and platinum-seat holders, and we’ve gotten direct input from them on things that we need to work on and things we need to work toward. We’ve had some discussions with our IT people [about] how we can use technologies to once again step up and continue to be the leader in our industry in how we present the events that we have here, with all of the digital signage and the concert sound system that’s available to us.

“You’ll see us stepping up our services. Even though we believe we’re at the forefront, our position is, if we just continuing offering the same thing year after year after year, it’s going to get old and stale. So we have to upgrade it, update it, and really pay an awful lot of attention to it.”

Erin Venema
Stars fan

“I used to live in apartments across the street from the AAC, so I’ve been near it and at it since it first opened. I think it’s a lovely building, and the architects and designers did a wonderful job with the grounds and the building itself. The first event I went to was the Dallas Stars season opener in 2002. Friends and I had season tickets at Reunion Arena, but we couldn’t afford the new seats at the AAC. At the game that night, I sat in the upper level and was astounded at how everyone seemed to be herded off and segregated. The seating area was so steep that even I felt cramped, and I’m only 5-foot-3. It’s a lovely and inviting place to be if you’re lucky enough to be able to afford seats in the lower levels. Otherwise you might as well stay home.”