The Las Vegas families who bought a controlling stake in the Dallas Mavericks have now gained a prime development site near downtown Dallas.
A company set up by the Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s owners took the deed to more than a dozen acres on Stemmons Freeway at Inspiration Drive in Dallas’ Design District. The high-profile property is just across the freeway from Victory Park and includes a building now used as the Mavericks practice facility.
Companies set up by Mark Cuban, now the Mavericks’ minority owner, have owned the properties since 2016. Cuban at one time considered using the property for a new arena for the team.
Cuban, in an email to The Dallas Morning News, confirmed the sale of the properties to “the individuals who purchased the Mavs.” The properties are valued for tax purposes at $42.9 million, according to county records.
The NBA Board of Governors approved the sale of majority ownership in the basketball team to the Adelson and Dumont families, who also control casino gambling giant Las Vegas Sands Corp., right after Christmas. Miriam Adelson and Patrick and Sivan Dumont paid more than $3.8 billion.
Cuban retained a 27% share in the Mavs and control over basketball operations. In a recent interview with The News, he described the deal as a partnership that plays to each party’s strength. “They’re not basketball people; I’m not a real estate person. That’s why I did it,” he said.
The property sales were made a week before the National Basketball Association approved the sale of the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont family. The companies that took ownership of the land were incorporated in October.
Along with the prime development site adjacent to downtown Dallas, a separate company formed by the Sands Corp. also purchased more than 200 acres on State Highway 114 at the southern gateway to Irving.
The central 108-acre tract at State Highway 114 and Loop 12 was previously occupied by a trucking firm’s shipping hub and is across the street from the former Texas Stadium site.
The Sands Corp affiliate, Village Walk RE 2 LLC, also purchased two smaller tracts of vacant land totaling more than 57 acres along the highway frontage. A 63-acre property included in the purchase is in the Trinity River floodplain and cannot be developed.
The Irving properties are valued for tax purposes at just over $36 million.
Sands Corp. and Cuban have floated the idea of building a casino resort that would serve as a tourism draw for North Texas. Casino gambling is illegal in Texas, though legislation to legalize it advanced to the House floor in this year’s session. Sands employed dozens of lobbyists to make the case for casinos.
A Sands spokesman said the land acquisitions are part of the company’s longstanding interest in the Dallas area.
“To my knowledge, that’s the only real estate currently held” by the Sands group in Texas, spokesman Ron Reese said about the properties in Irving and the Design District. “There certainly could be additional purchases in the future.”
Companies controlled by Cuban still own properties in Dallas’ Deep Ellum District and a block just south of the convention center.
