2 min read April 2023 — Invest: spoke with Jim Ross, mayor of the City of Arlington, about his city’s focus on attracting businesses to bring “better paying jobs”, the importance of starter homes to build a healthy housing cycle and expanding their rideshare program named Via.
What were some key highlights for the City of Arlington over the last year?
Economic development is still a massive priority for us. We also have a focus on attracting businesses here to bring better paying jobs. These jobs have a positive impact on the city with everything from homelessness, crime and housing problems. This is how we keep the community on track through eliminating problems by keeping people happy and busy and gainfully employed.
How are you navigating challenges related to interest rates, inflation, supply chain issues and labor?
We do it with relationships. We navigate these problems by maintaining good relationships and we constantly work with them daily. Our chamber of commerce is one of the best with engaging businesses which they benefit from. Nothing is a one and done type thing for us. The Texas Rangers came here 51 years ago, and they are now in their third stadium in Arlington. They stay here because we know how to develop and sustain those relationships, and since then five other professional franchises have come to town. It is important, and it is a good revenue base for the city.
How are you making transportation affordable and accessible for residents?
Arlington has a rideshare program called Via, which is basically like Uber or Lyft. This helps get people around the city, but it doesn’t really help moving people in and out of the city because it is limited to the city limits. We expanded Via to connect with bus routes to Fort Worth, and we are currently working to regionalize the program with other local towns. This way we can move people in and out of area cities effectively. Transit authorities are great, but they don’t give an immediate ROI, and could cost about $38 million a year and many of the buses might be empty. A rapid bus or rail system traveling through north Texas is an interesting consideration and we are exploring those possibilities, but they don’t happen overnight and they aren’t inexpensive.
How are you strengthening the local workforce?
You have to make your city attractive for certain types of businesses. You need to streamline your processes to make it easy for them to get here, and you will have to incentivize them to move here. In the past, we had to be creative with tax breaks and other incentives, but now we have a much better arsenal by funding our EDC through a sales tax. We can now go out and help to build the business base to bring new programs in. We have done redevelopments with strip malls and shopping malls, as well as office space and mixed-use projects. We used it for the Bell Helicopter Research Center here in Arlington, as well as several small businesses. We are excited about how we are able to move forward on these types of projects.
What areas need the most support from the City of Arlington?
There is no specific area, but the more engaged people are in the community, the better off that community is. It can come from economic development, or it can come from being inclusive, either way it makes an impact. A mark of a good city is how they take care of people that can’t take care of themselves like veterans and the elderly. Our city works really well at taking care of these things, because they have cared so much for us over time. That means the world to me.
There are a few ways to build trust. You have to be inclusive and recognize that our communities are made of various rich cultures. We should learn from them because they make us better human beings. I am a 62-year-old white, heterosexual, Christian male, and my perspective comes from there. For me to be an effective leader, it is incumbent on me to get the perspective of people different from myself. We have advisory councils where I can get input from these various groups, so we can get suggestions about how to best help. I will never be able to see through their eyes, so we need to be guided, because we are stronger together. If we don’t get out of our bubbles, we don’t see the full picture.
What is the current state of housing affordability and availability in Arlington?
The price of housing in Texas has increased and it has become unaffordable for many. The housing cycle is important to understand. People start out with an apartment, and Arlington has plenty of that level of housing. Later, when you get married, you need a starter home, but we are lacking affordable homes in that category. Many older people want to go back to a starter type home later in life, but again, we are lacking in that area. Our goal is to make affordable homes in the right categories to strengthen this cycle. We may do a micro-community for seniors, which has affordable cottage type living. We did some on the east side of town and it worked out very well, because it gives seniors the ability to feel independent.
What is your outlook for the next few years?
We convinced Texas Southern University, a premier historically black college and university, to relocate their North Texas campus to Arlington. They are moving their health sciences department here. We want to partner up and do a HBCU medical school and training hospital here in Arlington. This would be a predominantly black medical school where people would come from all over the world to train and be patients. We are very excited about this project, and it will bring a lot of energy that would be off the charts. It will create so much economic development and that will have a huge impact.
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