In Ft. Worth, Charean Williams notes Cowboys players will "get a preview of their new home at their minicamp in June, two months before The Ford Center at The Star opens in Frisco." Cowboys Exec VP & Chief Brand Officer Charlotte Jones Anderson said, "They'll take their first peak in June, and then it will still not be finished quite yet, but when we come back for our last week of (training) camp, that’s when we'll move in for good." Williams notes the Cowboys will "leave Irving after four decades at Valley Ranch, moving into their new digs in July." When the Cowboys break training camp in Oxnard, Calif., on Aug. 19, they will "return to the new six-story headquarters in Frisco" (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 4/15).
MAKE OR BREAK: In St. Paul, Tad Vezner reports St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman "faced tough questioning at the Capitol on Thursday about his plans to make the city’s new soccer stadium exempt from state property taxes." Team owners have said that the project would be "very difficult" without the tax break. While testifying before the House’s tax committee, Coleman "found himself stating repeatedly that the stadium’s site hasn’t paid property taxes for more than 50 years." The debate "surrounded a proposal brought forth" by state Rep. Tim Sanders, "asking the state for continuation of a property-tax exemption for the 10-acre site in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood, permission for the proposed stadium to sell booze and a sales-tax exemption for construction equipment" (ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS, 4/15).
OFF THE MAPFRE: In Columbus, Shawn Mitchell reports the $500,000 that the Crew is "in line to receive in the new state capital budget would be spent on an artificial-turf field at the team’s EAS Training Center" in Obetz, Ohio. The Crew "originally had sought" $1.56M in state money "for improvements to Mapfre Stadium but instead targeted a third field for its Obetz facility." Preliminary plans for the soccer-specific synthetic surface "do not include a weatherproof bubble." The field "would be used by the Crew, its academy teams and the community at large." The field "would be adjacent to the Crew’s two existing grass fields in Obetz" It would be "operated with a public partner, potentially the Village of Obetz" (COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 4/15).
