The long anticipated Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, Texas, is expected to open this summer, giving a new $88 million venue to a remote area of the Rio Grande Valley.
“We don’t have an exact opening date, but we’re thinking by the end of June or early July. We are putting a lot of time and effort to get the last phase of the project done,” said Marty Hinojosa, lead architect for Cantu Construction, developer of the arena.
Edinburg is located just 20 miles from the Mexico border, and the 219,649-square-foot arena will be the new home of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, a National Basketball Association G-League team. The Vipers are owned by Alonzo Cantu, who also owns Cantu Construction.
The arena will seat 9,000 for concerts, 7,600 for basketball games, roughly 7,200 for rodeos and family shows and will have 12 luxury suites with 18 seats each. Parking can fit up to 2,200 cars.
Unpredictable factors, such as weather and the need of building materials, pushed the opening date back a month or two, Hinojosa said. Originally, the arena was slated to open in the first quarter of 2018.
Late last August, Hurricane Harvey hit Port Mansfield, Texas, which is roughly 65 miles east of Edinburg, and many of the contractors who live along the Gulf Coast had to halt work on the arena for 10 days.
“They had to stay home with their families to help with cleanup,” Hinojosa said, highlighting that the hurricane did not hit Edinburg. “It was very important to us for them to go home, because we know that’s important for the people who are going to be using the arena.”
Aside from Hurricane Harvey, the arena also had 140 non-construction weather days due to rain and wind. The construction company also experienced delays with material delivery.
Perhaps the biggest undertaking in getting the entire project off the ground was building new infrastructure — water, gas, drainage, sewage and fiber optic cable installation — before vertical construction on the arena could even start. The venue site is located next to an interstate in a rural part of Edinburg on what used to be agricultural land.
“After we broke ground, people would drive by and say ‘We don’t see anything,’” Hinojosa said. “It’s because all the work was going on underground for the first six to eight months.”
Installing the massive infrastructure now allows new businesses and residential opportunities, she said.
“It will be much easier for people to develop there,” she said. “It’s already started. There are some hotel and retail spaces next to the arena. There’s a strip where people can come in and build a new restaurant.”
Residential development has already started to sprout to the east of the arena, Hinojosa said.
“This is one of the biggest venues in our area,” she said, noting how the city and Cantu Construction are excited to see the economic impact the arena that has a population of roughly 2 million.
According to a study conducted but the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, the venue is expected to have a “$230 million immediate economic impact with the new facility and $76 million impact each year after.”
Funding for the arena was made possible through a private and public partnership between the city of Edinburg and Cantu.
Taxpayers were not burdened with the financing. Instead, Edinburg invested $30 million through a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, a political subdivision of a municipality or county in the state of Texas created to implement tax increment financing.
The remaining $55 million dollars was funded by a grant raised by the Vipers.
“The $55 million grant gives Mr. Cantu the right to lease the arena from the city for $350,000 per year. This lease and development agreement was proposed by the city of Edinburg and was modeled after the Toyota Center, BBVA Compass Stadium and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority,” according to a fact sheet from Cantu Construction.
Three things were taken into consideration when designing the new arena: technology, comfort, and food, said Yajaira Flores, director of booking and marketing at Bert Ogden Arena and H-E-B Park, the soccer stadium that opened next to the arena site late last summer. Next to the arena is H-E-B soccer stadium that opened late last summer. It’s owned by Cantu Construction, has 17,000-seats (20,000 GA floor) and a 2,500-capacity amphitheater.
“We felt that those three things would really cater to the fan experience,” she said.
The Bert Ogden Arena went with a non-traditional food management company and hired Luby’s and Fuddruckers as the food and beverage provider.
“It’s really good food … really good comfort food,” Flores said.
Additionally, the design team wanted to give fans comfortable seating, so the seats measure 48 inches from the front to the back.
“That’s double the leg room that other venues have,” Flores said. “We didn’t want people to be crowded in this small space.”
State-of-the-art technology also is a huge part of the new venue with new ribbon boards and a massive new scoreboard that’s deemed the biggest in the NBA G league.
The arena also will have double the points-of-sale stations that other venues have, giving fans extra places to purchase retail or food concessions, Flores said.
“This arena was built to improve the quality of life of our community,” Cantu said in a statement. “This arena is about civic pride and is an economic engine that will create jobs for South Texas.”
It’s estimated 1,000 jobs will be created from the arena.
Bert Ogden Auto Group landed the naming rights to the arena last summer for an undisclosed amount.
“The arena is designed to deliver exceptional live performances and revitalize our community through sports and live entertainment events. Our residents no longer have to travel to different cities to see superior quality events but can enjoy them in their own backyard,” Cantu said.