Exterior of Las Calinas (Texas) Music Factory.
The long-anticipated Irving Music Factory, Las Calinas, Texas, will unveil itself to the public in phases this fall, starting with the grand opening of the mixed-use development’s entertainment pavilion managed by Live Nation.
The 250,000-sq.-ft. entertainment center is located in Irving, Texas, which is between Dallas and Fort Worth in an upscale business district called Las Calinas that’s surrounded by a suburban area.
Twenty-five new restaurants, a 100,000-sq-ft. glass office tower and a 50,000-sq-ft. common area plaza with a full production stage are all included in the entertainment center. Additionally, an eight-screen Alamo Drafthouse movie theater and retail space also are included in the development.
The entire project costs $200 million, said Noah Lazer, president of the North Carolina-based ARK Group, which is the project developer.
On Labor Day weekend, The Pavilion — a convertible indoor/outdoor concert venue — will open with sold-out shows featuring Dave Chappelle and Brad Paisley’s Weekend Warrior World Tour 2017.
The Pavilion’s indoor configuration can house 2,500 guests for a theater setting, going up to 4,000 seats for arena shows and accommodate 8,000 guests for and indoor/outdoor open-air pavilion performances.
Restaurants and entertainment venues will open throughout the Irving Music Factory each week, and the grand opening of the entire project is slated for Dec. 8-10.
For more than 10 years, Irving has been waiting to see this development get off the ground.
Another exterior view of Las Calinas (Texas) Music Factory.
“The city and multiple other developers tried to make this happen for a long time,” Lazer said. “It’s tricky building a $200-million entertainment center. Not just the leasing side of it, but also the financing side and the city approval side.”
The Irving Music Factory is being financed through private and public funding, including a lodging tax that was passed by 67 percent of the voters. ARK Group secured support from private investors, and the city used Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to fund the project.
“It shows how bad the city of Irving wanted this project,” Lazer said.
The Las Calinas business district has long needed an entertainment district to amuse the massive amounts of corporations that conduct business in the area, said Maura Gast, executive director of the Irving Convention & Visitors Bureau.
Prior to the Irving Music Factory’s construction, “we were singularly relying on corporate travel,” Gast said. “We have not had another leg to stand on.”
In 2011, the Irving Convention Center opened, bringing a total of 275,000 sq. ft. of meeting and convention space to a highly populated business district — a district where big companies like Kimberly Clark and Exxon Mobil are headquartered. The convention center is managed by SMG.
“We did a great job building our city for business,” Gast said, noting that now the city is ready for the entertainment leg it’s been missing, and the Irving Music Factory will fill that need in Las Calinas.
The $131-million convention center, the Irving Music Factory and a new 350-room Westin all will be located within a block radius once the entertainment district and the Westin are completed.
The $105-million Westin broke ground in March, and will add to the 12,000 hotel rooms in Las Calinas, Gast said.
The Irving Music Factory will offer live entertainment and new dining options to the nearly 1 million people who visit Las Calinas each year, she said.
A training and consulting company called Ethos, based in Irving, will be the soul tenant in the 100,000 sq. ft. of office space that looks out onto the entertainment center.
And with Live Nation managing The Pavilion and the ARK Group acting as landlords of the entire real estate, Lazer has no doubt that the Irving Music Center will have years of success.
“The internet is never going to replace the live experience, and it’s never going to replace a good meal,” he said. “We have way more staying power than retail. As long as the health of the district stays healthy.”