Arlington Art Museum to Relocate to Entertainment District, to Host First Exhibition in Early 2024

The Arlington Art Museum will open early next year in the city’s vibrant entertainment district, aiming to attract more art lovers and more compelling exhibitions, including immersive ones.

The museum, which has been a downtown cultural destination for more than 30 years, has been seeking a larger, more flexible space to accommodate a wider variety of exhibits and educational offerings, officials said. Under an agreement approved Tuesday by the Arlington City Council, the museum is scheduled to relocate in early 2024 to the city’s esports stadium and expo center near Choctaw Stadium and the future National Medal of Honor Museum. The special use agreement will provide the Arlington Art Museum with approximately 48,000 square feet of flexible space within the Expo Center, compared to its current available space of 5,500 square feet at 201 W. Main St., a museum originally built in the 1950s Remodel the store.

“Over the past several years, the Arlington Museum of Art has honed its skills as a never-ending museum,” said Arlington Museum of Art President and CEO Chris Hightower . “Every three to four months, we transform our entire space with brand new art exhibitions. Now we have the opportunity to expand.”

Arlington attracts more than 14.5 million visitors annually, thanks in large part to amenities and assets within The District, home to Globe Life Field, AT&T Stadium, Texas Live!, Six Flags Over Texas and more location. The museum’s special use agreement for 1200 Ballpark Way complements existing or upcoming venues and attractions there. The agreement, which does not affect the 100,000-square-foot Arlington Esports Stadium in the same building, also provides for an adaptive use of the city’s older convention space. Arlington’s new 200,000-square-foot convention center will open in February 2024 as part of the 888-room Loews Arlington hotel.

“The incredible momentum we’ve seen in the Arlington Entertainment District over the past five years is one of the main reasons why the Arlington Art Museum is such a good fit,” said Museum Board Chairman Jay Warren. “There is a great synergy here. The museum will be in a higher profile location to attract more visitors, which will allow us to bring a higher caliber of exhibits. At the same time, the museum’s programming will benefit Arlington’s Providing visitors with an alternative, expanding The District’s offerings.”

The interior renovation of the Expo Center will start in October this year and be completed in February next year. As part of an agreement with the city, the museum plans to spend about $2.9 million on interior improvements to the Expo Center space, while the city plans to allocate about $1.9 million in next year’s budget to improve public corridors between the esports venues Arlington Stadium and the new space for the museum and the west facade of the building.

To support the creation of infrastructure for the state-of-the-art museum, the museum has launched the first phase of its “Outside the Lines: Reimagining the AMA” capital campaign. In a second phase, the campaign will expand its scope to include extensive improvements to the building’s exterior.

Cultural tourism generates a record-breaking $1 trillion for the U.S. economy, and more than 850 million people from around the world visit U.S. museums each year. On average, visitors to the museum’s major exhibits come from at least 40 different states and more than 20 different countries. Last year, museum attendance rose 46% over 2021, and museum officials say they expect exhibition attendance to grow exponentially in larger spaces that will allow for traditional, next-generation, interactive and immersive environment exhibition.

“We are so grateful to the City of Arlington for recognizing that investing in the arts means investing in economic prosperity,” Hightower said. “Our new location will allow the Museum to not only serve our community, but attract $33 to $38 million in annual non-local spending by 2028.”

Under the agreement, the museum will pay the city a base annual fee of $650,000, plus a 10 percent revenue share of up to $3 for each paid ticket. Arlington will retain ownership of the building and its ability to book rentals at the Expo Center during any downtime in the museum’s programming. As a designated “super user” of the Expo Center space, the Arlington Art Museum will receive priority reservations for individual exhibits for months at a time.

“The new AMA footprint will be eight times larger than our current footprint,” Hightower said, “enabling us to blend traditional, immersive, interactive and an ever-evolving art form.”

title: To support the creation of infrastructure for the state-of-the-art museum, the museum has launched the first phase of its “Outside the Lines: Reimagining the AMA” capital campaign. For the anticipated future second phase, the campaign will expand its scope to include extensive improvements to the building’s exterior. These renderings show what the possible second phase of improvements could look like.

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