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
The Harris County – Houston Sports Authority Insider will take you inside Houston Sports each Friday because #WeAreHoustonSports!
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?
Most Popular
SportsMap Emails
Are Awesome
Listen Live
After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or nine games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after a 4-8 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez (though not Breggy Bad). A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.