The Arts Center Is Real. Now Comes the Hard Part.

If you've been watching the River Walk wonder when something would actually happen there, here's your update: the Arts Center is past architects sketching on whiteboards. It is not, however, past town council arguing over the bill.

At a March 2026 Cultural Arts Commission meeting and then an April 16 Town Council work session, the design team from Hoefer Welker + BORA Architects wrapped up their pre-design presentation — and council dug into the relationship between program priorities and the available budget. That tension is the whole story right now.

The pre-design concepts came back ranging from $75 million to $100 million. Well above the $50 million figure that had been floating around earlier. That gap matters because it changes how the town pays for it, and when.

Pay cash, and the town avoids interest — but construction wouldn't start until at least 2030, and waiting means higher costs as construction prices keep climbing. Finance it with debt, and crews could theoretically break ground as early as 2027, with a two-year build putting an opening somewhere around 2029.

The town's Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone — a financing tool that captures growth in property tax values above a set baseline — has its funds earmarked for exactly this kind of River Walk improvement. Town Manager James Childers said the TIRZ puts the town "in a position to do that without having to raise the tax rate or touch the tax rate for our residents." Whether that math fully pencils out at $100 million is the question nobody has answered on the record yet.

The planned center would sit on the east side of town and include a main stage theater, flexible performance spaces, multipurpose rooms for music and dance, classrooms, music studio and production spaces, a gallery, and an outdoor performance lawn connected to the Riverwalk trail system and neighboring restaurants. Performers who currently load gear into a car and drive to Lewisville or Grapevine for a real stage would finally have somewhere to go.

Mayor Cheryl Moore put it plainly at a council meeting last fall: "The River Walk has been a place that everyone identifies with as being very beautiful and I know it has lacked a home for the activities that were promised at the onset." A polite way of saying the River Walk has been beautiful and half-finished for years. The arts center is the town's attempt to finally own that.

Here's what to watch: the financing decision is the next real gate. If council chooses debt, the 2027 construction start stays plausible. If they wait for cash on hand, anyone expecting something new at the River Walk before 2030 should adjust their expectations. Deputy Mayor Pro-Tem Adam Schiestel has floated the idea of pushing construction back until anticipated sales tax revenue from projects like Furst Ranch, Monarch, and the town's connection to I-35W comes in. Not unreasonable. But it's also how "someday" projects stay "someday" projects.

The design is real. The site is bought. The architects have a vision. What's still missing is the number council agrees to spend and the plan to spend it.