Harris County – Houston Sports Authority Insider
Arnold has quietly been building big things in the city of Houston and around the country
Melanie Hauser
Nov 10, 2017, 7:44 am
Minute Maid Park is one of Mark Arnold's favorite projects. MLB.com
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It was a wild seven-game ride.
There were highs, lows and some downright stressful moments for Houstonians during the Astros’ historic World Series Championship run and everyone had a unique way of coping. Some paced. Some tweeted. Some wore lucky shirts.
Mark Arnold baked.
The outgoing 51-year-old partner at Andrews Kurth Kenyon and lifelong Astros fan headed to the kitchen and whipped up batches of cookies and banana bread.
“It calmed me down,’’ said Arnold, who also cans his own jellies, jams and pickles. “It centers me a little bit. It’s a task that starts and ends.
“The legal practice is never a task that starts and ends. It starts but it never ends.’’
No one knows that better than Arnold, who also serves as General Counsel for the Harris County - Houston Sports Authority, and was the man in the middle of the deals that built Minute Maid Park, NRG Stadium, Toyota Center and BBVA Compass Stadium.
After graduating from Columbia Law School, the 1984 Bellaire High graduate got his start practicing traditional real estate law at Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton, but it was a ride across Houston when he was a sixth-year associate there that changed the course of his career.
Two decades later, Arnold is one of the country’s go-to lawyers for public-private partnerships for economic development of world-class stadiums. In addition to Houston’s venues, he has headed up projects around Texas and is now representing the Las Vegas Stadium Authority on a $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium project for the Las Vegas Raiders. Groundbreaking for the stadium is Nov. 13.
Arnold describes himself as a “straight-talk, hard-charging kind of you-get-what-you-see, see-what-you-get’’ lawyer and is at his best when he rolls up his sleeves and gets to work in a board room.
“It’s really gratifying as a lawyer to be able to negotiate something for the community and then see the impact that it has,’’ he said. “I am a big sports fan. And Minute Maid Park is still my favorite thing I’ve done because I’m such a baseball fan.’’
All of which brings us to that drive two decades ago that changed everything.
Public finance attorney Bob Collie, who helped write the legislation that gave Houston the ability to create the Sports Authority and served as its first General Counsel, asked Arnold to take a ride with him one day. They were going to meet then-Sports Authority Chairman Jack Rains.
“I said OK,’’ Arnold said. “We drove out to Jack Rains’ house and Bob said, ‘Here’s our real estate and construction lawyer and lets go from there.’ That’s how it started.’’
Collie knew how to issue bonds, while Arnold was the man who could negotiate leases. It was the perfect blend of talent and soon they were off and running on plans for the Astros’ new home.
“What’s interesting about stadium deals is they’re essentially like any other big, complicated real estate transactions,’’ he said. “It’s taxpayers’ money, so a good, fair deal for the taxpayers, but one the team can live with – just like any negotiation that you do. It’s an art and a science to a certain degree, and I like to think I’ve gotten better at it over time. It was fun deal.’’
Andrews Kurth and Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton merged in 2001 and Arnold’s role continued to expand. He and the firm represent the government entities and Arnold is involved in everything from financing to development, architecture, construction and leasing.
For the Las Vegas stadium project, Arnold reached out to Nevada firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, a firm he worked with on the acquisition of the Golden Nugget Casino for Rockets’ owner Tilman Fertitta’s Landry’s Restaurants, Inc. He worked on several other acquisitions for Fertitta and is representing him in the development of The Post Oak at Uptown Houston, a mixed-use project that combines a hotel, restaurants, office and residential spaces.
There were 31 firms that originally expressed interest in the Raiders’ stadium project and Arnold was all smiles when the firm was selected as general counsel in January.
“I was happy, elated and surprised,’’ he said. “It was a recognition of all the hard work our team has done here on representing governmental agencies and stadium transactions.’’
Each project Arnold has worked on has had its own unique set of issues and stress points.
“The Minute Maid Park deal was stressful in that we had a groundbreaking date that we had to meet and we had to have enough documents done at that date to meet that groundbreaking,’’ Arnold said. “We did and the stadium got done on time.’’
Next up was then-Reliant Stadium and the challenge, after Bud Adams took the Houston Oilers to Tennessee, was convincing the NFL to bring an expansion team to Houston.
“Our deadline was the NFL meetings in Los Angeles because, at the time, Houston was thought to be in second position behind LA for an expansion franchise,’’ he said. “In large part because of (owner) Bob McNair and his vision for the team, we got the team, but also we got the team because we put together a memorandum of understanding on a stadium transaction with our client (the Sports Authority), on one side and the Rodeo and the Texans on the other side.
“We had to convince the NFL that Houston had its act together, that Houston wanted a team. That Houston wasn’t going to let another team go.”
The city didn’t pass the first referendum for the Toyota Center, but after hammering out a few changes, voters did approve a second one.
Arnold also led developments in Texas for BBVA Compass Stadium, Constellation Field, Cedar Park Events Center (home to the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars) and a basketball arena in Edinburg.
Over the past few years, Houston’s venues have taken center stage nationally with the 2017 Super Bowl and World Series and 2016 Final Four. And, in a true small-world story, Arnold is now representing Sports Authority Chairman J. Kent Friedman, the man who hired him at Mayor, Day, Caldwell & Keeton.
“Kenny came up to Columbia Law School, took me out to my first interview dinner ever and hired me as part of the summer program,’’ Arnold said. “Now, I’m enjoying working with him as a client.”
And Arnold is impressed with way Sports Authority CEO Janis Burke is guiding Houston into the next phase.
“She was the right person to take the Sports Authority from merely building stadiums, to then marketing sports in Houston and Houston as a sports town,’’ he said.
In Fertitta, he sees a new team owner who “will take it to the next level. He’s a visionary who really understands what people want from an entertainment and culinary aspect.’’
As for that stress baking? He’s got plenty to keep him busy including leases to renew with all the major Houston franchises. And there’s always that lingering question about whether - someday - Houston might add an NHL team.
Banana bread and cookies anyone?
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There's no denying that this year's World Series champs (LA Dodgers) have some serious firepower on their roster. And one of the ways they were able to assemble such a talented team involved players like Shohei Ohtani being willing to differ their money.
Just this week, there was some speculation that the Yankees could do something similar when restructuring Gerrit Cole's contract, that would allow them more flexibility in the present.
The Yankees ended up calling Cole's bluff about opting out, and no adjustment was made to the contract.
But this situation got us thinking, would the Astros consider a tactic like this to maximize the roster? At this point, it doesn't seem all that likely. Just last year, the team handed out a $95 million contract to Josh Hader, without any differed money.
The other factor that also has to come into play is the tax threshold. The organization would have to give the okay to go over it again in order to make a splash signing this offseason. Which unfortunately does not sound like the plan right now when listening to GM Dana Brown at the Winter Meetings.
Astros pitcher hires a new agent
Now that MLB free agency is in full swing, most of the attention moving forward will be focused on players like Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, and Juan Soto.
But for Astros fans, there might be someone else to keep an eye on this offseason and next. Starting pitcher Hunter Brown quietly hired super agent Scott Boras recently.
With Brown still another season away from his first year of arbitration, he should be with the Astros for the foreseeable future.
However, the hiring of Boras does raise some interesting questions. Why make the move now? Certainly, Brown could use some more cash, as he's set to make less than a million in 2025.
Perhaps Brown wants to land some HEB commercials to fatten his wallet. And if Bregman does leave the team in free agency, a spot will open up for another player, in theory. And three of the players in the HEB ads are represented by Boras (Jose Altuve, Lance McCullers Jr. and Bregman).
Jeremy Pena has been stacking cash from Taquerias Arandas for several years now, maybe Brown would like an opportunity to do an endorsement similar to that.
I say all this half kidding, but Brown does look like the future ace of this staff, and I'm sure there are plenty of advertisers that would have interest in Hunter.
There is another element that could have initiated the hiring of Boras. Would Brown be willing to sign an extension early with the Astros similar to the deal the team made with Cristian Javier?
Their situations are actually pretty comparable, except Javier was one year further into his career (3 years of MLB service time) and eligible for arbitration before agreeing to the extension.
If Brown was heading into arbitration this offseason, it wouldn't be surprising at all for the Astros to be considering a long-term deal with him that buys up all his arbitration years. The 'Stros love these types of contract extensions. We've seen them do it with Bregman, the aforementioned Javier, and others.
One of the main differences though between Brown and Javier is their rookie year numbers. Brown only pitched 20.1 innings in his first season (2022). While Javier pitched 54.1 innings his rookie year. However, his rookie season was in 2020, so Javier completed a full year of service time despite the shortened season. Whereas Brown didn't get called up until September 2022.
Another difference is performance. Javier never posted an ERA over 3.55 in his first three seasons. As opposed to Brown, who had a disastrous year in 2023. He made 29 starts, recording an ERA over 5.
It wasn't until May of 2024 that Brown started using his two-seam fastball with great success and becoming one of the most dominant pitchers in the American League.
The Astros had a bigger sample size to judge Javier. However, if Brown has another quality season in 2025, Houston and Brown should definitely be having conversations about an extension. Especially with Framber Valdez being in the final year of his contract in 2025. Hunter could be the unquestioned ace one year from now.
Still, though, there are some concerns with handing out these early extensions. For example, if the Astros had it to do over again, would they still extend Javier?
After receiving his extension before the 2023 season, he went on to post the highest ERA of his career (4.56), and then blew out his elbow in May 2024.
And if we're going by Luis Garcia's recovery timeline from Tommy John surgery, we may not see Javier pitch at all in 2025.
So even with a sample size of three terrific seasons, the Javier extension looks like a miss with the benefit of hindsight. It will be interesting to see if that deal impacts Dana Brown's decision-making going forward.
Especially since Javier was Dana's first big contract extension as the Astros GM.
Be sure to watch the video as we discuss how the Astros can get the most out of their roster, the pros and cons of signing Hunter Brown early, and much more!
*Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcasts. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and Charlie Pallilo discuss varied Astros topics. The post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon. Find all via The SportsMap HOU YouTube channel or listen to episodes in their entirety at Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
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