Staff weigh options to make Venue 1842 revenue neutral amid parking and flood‑plain limits

City staff in Farmers Branch told meeting participants they are conducting a financial analysis to make Venue 1842 “revenue neutral,” and have not recommended formal action pending further study.

The analysis is intended to offset a general‑fund debt payment associated with the venue, staff said. “I’m going back and assessing some of the revenues and the expenses … to see if they wanna reduce city events and have more actual paid sponsorships since there is a general fund debt payment due to it,” said Phillips Barrick, Director of Economic Development, Tourism and Planning.

Barrick described physical constraints that limit the venue’s ability to increase revenue by accommodating larger rentals: the facility holds about 200 people but has spaces for roughly 60 parked cars on site. He said staff evaluated three ways to add parking, including using the brick road and relocating trees, but each option raised tradeoffs — removing trees, relocating a fire hydrant, reducing a fire lane or creating parking in flood‑plain areas that would require additional liability waivers for renters.

“We can at least get 40 extra spaces … If I can at least get 100 spots, I think, would be in a good spot,” Barrick said, describing the engineering and tree‑preservation work staff are reviewing.

Barrick said some nearby warehousing used previously for overflow parking will be lost when that property begins new operations, and confirmed that much of the land around the venue is in a flood plain. He said staff will present recommendations to the City Council in the coming month on how to make the venue revenue neutral; until then, he said, no council direction was issued and staff will continue financial and engineering analysis.

Stakeholders at the meeting asked whether tree removal could be mitigated by replanting; Barrick said that replanting would increase costs and is part of the analysis. He also noted that state law and hotel‑motel/tourism fund limits are being considered when deciding which venue and park expenses may be charged to tourism funds. “There’s a state legislature law that you can only use tourism funds for historical park up to a certain percentage, and we’re getting very close to it,” Barrick said when discussing related park funding.

No motions or votes were taken on Venue 1842 during the meeting.

The next step, according to staff, is a presentation to City Council with revenue and expense scenarios and proposed tradeoffs for parking, tree preservation and event programming.