Arlington mayor reflects on road construction, hotel rooms and the NBA All-Star Game

 Robert Cluck, center, talks with sprint star Michael Johnson while Hall-of-Famer Rayfield Wright looks on during a Super Bowl press conference at the Arlington Sheraton. Photo by Max Faulkner/Star-Telegram
 

Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck agreed to sit down for a few minutes last week to talk about Super Bowl preparations. He will be in Miami for Super Bowl XLIV, the one final run-through before his city hosts the big game in 2011.

He told a story about getting stuck in construction traffic and missing an event at last year's Super Bowl in Tampa, talked about how Arlington needs more premium hotel space and said he's not at all concerned that Dallas will be the center of attention for all but the game when the NBA All-Stars come to town in February.

Here are some of his comments:

On road construction: Drivers who have had quite enough of the construction delays and detours around Cowboys Stadium might enjoy the story of how some members of the North Texas Super Bowl Host Committee, including Mayor Cluck, needed two hours to travel 20 or 30 miles to an event on their first night in Tampa last winter. By the time they arrived at their destination, the event was over.  

“It really opened our eyes," the mayor said. "It was good for us. We experienced what we don’t want people to experience here.

"They had quite a bit of construction out there. We learned there that you can’t do that when you have that many people come.”

On those Arlington hotels: Cluck talked about how much the region will benefit from the Super Bowl, but he has to acknowledge one downer for Arlington: a lack of premium hotel space. The NFC host hotel is the Omni Mandalay in Las Colinas. The AFC team will stay at the Omni in Fort Worth. The NFL headquarters hotel is the Hilton Anatole in Dallas. The Media Center will be in the Sheraton Dallas.

“Clearly, in Arlington, it makes us understand the importance of building new hotel space, premium space," he said. "I knew when the stadium opened that we would not have it, but it’s an evolutionary process.

"But I also have no doubt that we will have it. I think all the cities will understand what they need to improve upon for another big experience."

The Sheraton Arlington Hotel, which is on Convention Center Drive less than two miles from Cowboys Stadium, has 311 rooms. The Hilton Arlington, at Lamar and Texas 360, has 308. According to the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau Web site, those two are far and away the city's largest hotels.

By comparison, Fort Worth's Omni has 614 rooms and suites, Irving's Omni Mandalay has 410, and the Sheraton Dallas has a whopping 1,840. And then there's the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, which has 1,511 rooms -- and guest rooms don't even begin to define that place.

Of course, the number of available rooms is only one of the considerations for a Super Bowl hotel. Location is important and, let's face it, so are amenities. These folks are used to traveling first class.

Cluck believes that if North Texas is going to make it into the Super Bowl rotation, Arlington will have to build some premiere hotels.

On the NBA All-Star Game: Cluck said he has been told by the NBA to be prepared for 200,000 people when the game comes to town Feb. 14. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already said that he wants 100,000 to attend the game in Cowboys Stadium (the All-Star Game record is 44,735, at the Astrodome), and Cluck said the rest would be outside, doing something.

"We're going to have good challenges," he said. 

The All-Star Game will be treated as a run-through for Super Bowl XLV, but with less planning. But Cluck said Arlington residents shouldn't worry about all those people descending upon their city.  

Not at all, he said. "We have a plan."

As a side note, Cowboys Stadium has hosted crowds topping 100,000 twice this season. The announced crowd for the regular-season finale against the Eagles was 100,621. In the regular-season opener against the Giants, attendance was an NFL-record 105,121.

Cluck also pointed out that the bulk of the festivities, except for the game itself, will be in Dallas. This includes the NBA All-Star Jam Session, which will be at the Dallas Convention Center, and the Rookie Challenge, All-Star Celebrity Game and NBA All-Star Saturday Night, all of which will be at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

"That’s the way it should be," Cluck said. "This is about Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks. We happen to have the best place in the world to play that game."

-- Kathy Vetter