Irving considers millions in upgrades for Music Factory project

Irving’s city council this week will consider a proposal to spend up to $30 million to improve the city’s 6-year-old Toyota Music Factory entertainment complex.

The $180 million retail, restaurant and entertainment center opened in 2018 between State Highway 114 and Las Colinas Boulevard.

The Music Factory includes a 4,000-seat indoor concert hall, an 8,000-seat outdoor amphitheater, 206,756 square feet of retail and restaurant space and a 100,000-square-foot office building. There’s also a movie theater.

But the project has never operated with the success originally anticipated.

A unit of New York-based Brookfield Asset Management last summer took over operation of the city-owned property from the original developers.

Brookfield has spent a year working with the city to evaluate the Music Factory and drawing up a new game plan.

“We feel that Toyota Music Factory is not hitting its full potential,” Brookfield’s Chase Martin told the city council last year in a work session.

Brookfield is asking the city for grants to make “certain capital improvements to the plaza and storefronts of the plaza estimated at $4.57 million and signage and architectural graphic improvements estimated at $1.7 million,” according to filings with the city. “The company is proposing specific tenant improvement costs, which are categorized in three groups, for a maximum reimbursement grant amount of an additional $25 million.”

The redevelopment plan includes remodeling the central plaza area, rebuilding the performance stage and making improvements to the storefronts and patios around the plaza.

Brookfield wants to redesign the central plaza at Toyota Music Factory.(Brookfield. )

The city is also being asked to approve new signage facing State Highway 114.

Brookfield has indicated it wants to better connect the Music Factory to the nearby Irving Convention Center and the Wells Fargo regional office campus under construction across Las Colinas Boulevard.

Under the proposal the city council will consider, the first Music Factory changes would be completed by the end of the next year with other upgrades to follow.

Irving officials have previously voiced support for the Music Factory revamp and have said the project needs to compete with other entertainment venues in North Texas.

Legacy West in Plano, Grandscape in The Colony and Texas Live! in Arlington all include restaurant and entertainment districts.

Music Factory operator Brookfield is one of North America’s biggest real estate investors and developers. In North Texas, Brookfield’s holdings include more than two dozen properties, including Frisco’s Stonebriar Centre mall, downtown Dallas apartments and millions of square feet of industrial space.