Arlington General Contractor, From I-30 to I-20

Arlington’s population has leveled off. The Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 estimates count 402,134 residents on July 1, 2025, slightly fewer than the 403,348 it estimated a year earlier. Growth here now looks like reinvestment: a vacant mall anchor turned into a new store, hotels and a museum filling in around the stadiums, 40-year-old houses getting new kitchens.

That changes the job. A typical Arlington project starts in a building with a history: a suite with the last tenant’s ceiling grid, a restaurant space with a hood you hope still passes, a 1984 kitchen with soffits over the cabinets. The first question is what you’re inheriting.

We’re MASACO Construction, a woman- and minority-owned general contractor headquartered at 7950 Legacy Drive in Plano, roughly 45 minutes from Arlington City Hall outside rush hour. Commercial work leads for us, with a full residential remodeling practice beside it. There’s no finished MASACO project in Arlington yet. The nearest is in Irving: Pizza Twist, a 2,000 SF franchise restaurant where we installed a full kitchen and its utility connections in 6 to 8 weeks, staging each phase around service hours so the doors never closed.

Nearby in Irving: the dining room at Pizza Twist, a restaurant build-out MASACO finished without closing the business.

The stadium district keeps adding buildings

North Arlington, just south of I-30, holds the city’s best-known blocks. AT&T Stadium opened in 2009. Globe Life Field, the Rangers’ retractable-roof ballpark, followed in 2020, with Choctaw Stadium, their previous home, still standing next door. Texas Live!, the dining and entertainment complex between the ballparks and the football stadium, arrived in 2018.

Then the district kept going. The City marked the opening of the Loews Arlington Hotel and Convention Center on February 13, 2024: a 21-story tower at 888 Nolan Ryan Expressway with 888 rooms, 266,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting space, and a 51,000 square foot ballroom. The National Medal of Honor Museum opened on March 25, 2025, at 1861 AT&T Way near Choctaw Stadium, with more than 100,000 square feet of space.

Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers since 2020, on a quiet day between games.

Traffic here comes in surges. A restaurant near the stadiums can idle on a Tuesday afternoon and run flat out when the Cowboys or the Rangers are home, so we size the hood, the walk-in, the restrooms, and the electrical service for the busiest night, not the average one. Deliveries, dumpster swaps, and inspections go on days when the lots are empty. A restaurant build-out in this district lives or dies on that planning.

I-20 and Cooper Street, where big boxes get cut down

South Arlington’s commercial spine is Interstate 20. The Parks Mall at Arlington opened at I-20 and Cooper Street in 1988, and it’s now mid-reinvention. In July 2026 the City announced that Dick’s House of Sport had opened in the vacant 120,000 square foot former Sears anchor, the first piece of a $45 million, multi-phase redevelopment. Next, the performance agreement calls for the mall owner to invest at least $20 million turning the old 82,000 square foot Dick’s store into one or more tenant spaces by 2030, aimed at retail, restaurant, and service tenants.

That’s Arlington commercial work in miniature: big boxes cut into smaller suites.

A few minutes east, Arlington Highlands is an open-air center at I-20 and Matlock Road that dates to the late 2000s, which puts its interiors at the age when restaurant and shop spaces start changing hands. On Matlock Road, Medical City Arlington finished a $144 million expansion in August 2025: more than 127,000 square feet, a new patient tower, and 60 added beds for 496 total. A hospital that size pulls clinics, imaging, and specialist offices into nearby buildings, and those suites need medical and wellness build-outs with exam-room plumbing and blocking for wall-mounted equipment.

Illustrative: a second-generation suite opened up for a new tenant, the kind of space common in Arlington’s older retail strips.

In south Arlington, most space you’ll tour has had a tenant before. What matters is what they left behind.

A reused suite saves weeks when the restrooms, ceiling, and rooftop units meet the code Arlington enforces today, and costs weeks when they don’t. We walk it before you sign, check the mechanical tonnage and any grease interceptor, and flag what has to come out. Our tenant improvement work covers both outcomes, and our guide to renovation versus build-out lays out the tradeoffs.

Downtown, UT Arlington, and the east side

Downtown is compact. City Hall stands at 101 W. Abram Street, the Levitt Pavilion faces it from Founders Plaza, and the UT Arlington campus starts right beside the plaza. The City rebuilt Abram Street between Cooper and Collins from 2018 to 2020, cutting it from five lanes to three to make room for on-street parking, landscaping, and public art. Student foot traffic and a slower street suit coffee shops, small restaurants, and service storefronts. Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital sits on West Randol Mill Road nearby.

On the east side, the economy is industrial. General Motors has built vehicles at its Arlington plant since 1954, and today the line turns out full-size SUVs. The Great Southwest Industrial District stretches across the Arlington and Grand Prairie line with warehouse and flex buildings. North of I-30, Viridian is the master-planned community near River Legacy Park where much of Arlington’s newest housing went up.

One geographic catch. Pantego and Dalworthington Gardens sit inside Arlington’s outer boundary but are separate towns. Pantego, for example, runs every permit, contractor registration, and certificate of occupancy through its own MyGov portal, not Arlington’s. We confirm the jurisdiction from the property record before anybody draws a line.

Arlington houses: median year built, 1984

Arlington counted 7,692 people in the 1950 census and 261,721 by 1990. Growth took off once the GM plant opened in 1954, and Six Flags followed in 1961. The Arlington Economic Development Corporation’s 2024 housing profile counts 99,367 single-family homes on the 2023 appraisal roll, with a median year built of 1984 and more than 65% built before 1990. The oldest houses cluster near downtown and in East Arlington, and the newest are in Viridian and parts of south Arlington. About one in five of those homes is investor owned.

What does that mean once the walls are open? Houses from the 1950s and 1960s near downtown can hide galvanized supply lines, cast iron drains, and undersized electrical service, so we carry those as named allowances instead of change orders. The 1970s and 1980s houses that fill so much of the city usually have solid structure and tired rooms: a kitchen boxed in by walls and soffits, a hall bath with a tub and shower combo, original windows. And all those rentals mean plenty of turnover remodels, where durability beats a showpiece.

Arlington permits, COs, and fire review, step by step

Planning and Development Services works from the second floor of City Hall at 101 W. Abram Street, the counter the City’s permit guide calls the One Start Center. Permits, COs, and food establishment permits all move through the ArlingtonPermits.com portal.

Contractor registration. Every contractor needs an active business registration with the City before a permit can be issued. For general contractors, a certificate of insurance comes into it only for right-of-way work, and then the City wants $1,000,000 per occurrence and $2,000,000 aggregate with Arlington named as certificate holder.

The code edition. Arlington adopted the 2021 International Codes and the 2020 National Electrical Code on November 1, 2022, and applications have had to comply since January 1, 2023. Some North Texas cities, Frisco and McKinney among them, now enforce the 2024 editions, so drawings carried over from a job there get a second look.

The commercial submittal. The City’s minimum plan submittal checklist for commercial permits asks for a before and after floor plan, an egress analysis when more than one exit is required, and energy compliance. MEP designs affecting more than 5,000 square feet must be sealed by a Texas professional engineer. Projects valued at $50,000 or more need a TDLR registration number at submittal. Every remodel, addition, first-time finish-out, and demolition needs an asbestos survey before the permit issues.

In an Arlington strip center from the 1970s or 1980s, order the asbestos survey the week you sign the lease. The permit can’t issue without it.

The certificate of occupancy. No business opens in a space until its CO is issued. A new tenant needs Building and Fire inspections. A change of use gets reviewed for exits, occupant load, sprinklers and alarms, plumbing fixtures, and parking, and the City may require a commercial building permit before it signs off. Review runs about 2 to 3 business days, and a CO building inspection requested before 7:00 a.m. happens the same business day. Landlords should know the Clean and Show CO: one Fire inspection lets Oncor provide temporary power for up to 30 days so a vacant space can be shown. Near the finish, the registered general contractor and the tenant can jointly request a temporary CO, which the Building Official reviews within 48 hours. Don’t count on a Friday request for a weekend opening.

Food service. Arlington’s retail food program reverses the order some owners expect. The CO comes first, and a Health Establishment Permit can’t be granted without it. Commercial plans for a new or remodeled food business get reviewed against both the building and health codes, and the Health Final inspection has to pass before you can even request the Building Final. Health permits don’t transfer, so a new owner of an existing restaurant needs a new CO and a new health permit.

Fire. The Fire Marshal’s Office publishes a kitchen hood construction guide that sets its plan review target at 10 business days and states plainly that there’s no expedited review. Hood suppression needs a manual pull station 10 to 20 feet from the hood, a Class K extinguisher within 30 feet, a tie-in to the building fire alarm where one exists (under a separate fire alarm permit), and carbon monoxide monitoring on every kitchen hood.

Nearby in Irving: the Pizza Twist order counter. MASACO phased the kitchen and utility work behind it around service hours.

Older buildings. Tearing down a structure 50 years or older sends the application to the Landmark Preservation Commission, which can add up to 45 days. The commission can’t deny a demolition, but it can extend the historic stay. Plenty of Arlington buildings qualify.

Remodeling the 1980s Arlington house

With a median build year of 1984, the Arlington house we’re most likely to walk into is a one- or two-story home, often brick, still on its original layout. The work tends to land in three places.

• Kitchens. Take down the soffits, open the wall to the family room once an engineer confirms what it carries, and replace builder cabinets with ones that reach the ceiling.
• Bathrooms. Replace the tub and shower combo with a walk-in shower, or keep a tub in the hall bath of a rental for durability. New drains behind the wall count as permitted work here, not repair.
• Whole-home remodels. Floors, lighting, doors, and paint done in one pass, often paired with new windows, which take their own permit and a door and window schedule.

Illustrative: a kitchen in a 1980s ranch house opened to the family room, the update many of the city’s houses from that decade are due for.

The City’s list of work exempt from permits covers painting, tiling, carpet, cabinets, and countertops, but replacing concealed traps, drains, or vent pipes is treated as new work. For a remodel that needs a permit, the residential submittal checklist asks for a before and after floor plan, the location of every smoke and carbon monoxide alarm, and a door and window schedule with U-factors and SHGC values. It also tells applicants to leave out interior elevations and aesthetic details. The City reviews code, not taste.

Neighbors get protection too. Arlington’s permit FAQ bars permitted outdoor construction within 300 feet of homes from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m. under standard time and from 8 p.m. to 7 a.m. during daylight saving time. The same FAQ requires a replacement water heater in a garage to sit 18 inches above the floor. In Viridian and other newer subdivisions, check the community’s design rules before changing anything outside. And in Interlochen, the northwest Arlington neighborhood where nearly 200 homeowners decorate for a holiday lights drive that draws more than 100,000 visitors, December is no time for a dumpster in the driveway.

Six Flags, a 1914 house, and a downtown stage

Six Flags Over Texas

The park that put Arlington on the map opened on August 5, 1961. According to Texas Highways, 8,374 guests paid $2.75 each that first day, and the park had been built on 105 acres in a single year for $10 million. Its developer, Angus Wynne Jr., was also running the Great Southwest Industrial District. The magazine traces the Rangers, three ballparks, and AT&T Stadium back to that success.

Six Flags Over Texas, open since 1961, with its coasters above the trees and parking fields.

The Fielder House

On West Abram Street, the Fielder House is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark marked in 1979. James Park Fielder and his wife, Mattie, built the brick Prairie style house in 1914 using steel lathing and other new methods of the day, with a large basement for storing produce from their land. Locals called it the Home on the Hill, and today it’s a museum. In 1914 the Fielders were building with the newest methods they could get, which is still the right instinct.

The 1914 Fielder House on West Abram Street, a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and museum.

Levitt Pavilion at Founders Plaza

The Levitt Pavilion sits at 100 W. Abram Street in Founders Plaza, across from City Hall and next to UT Arlington. Its free concert seasons run in spring, summer, and fall. Visit the permit counter at City Hall and it’s the building across the street.

The Levitt Pavilion at Founders Plaza, directly across Abram Street from City Hall.

How an Arlington job runs with MASACO

Our six-step process doesn’t change with the address. In Arlington it looks like this.

1. Understand. We walk the space or the house, confirm it’s really in Arlington and not Pantego or Dalworthington Gardens, and pull the last CO and permit history.
2. Visualize. You see 3D renderings of the design before you see a number.
3. Plan. You get a fixed-scope proposal broken out by trade, with allowances named and Arlington’s own line items included, like the asbestos survey, TDLR registration, and a separate hood suppression permit.
4. Execute. A single project manager runs the job, files permits and inspection requests, keeps deliveries off event days near the stadiums, and sends you a written update with photos every week.
5. Deliver. At the end you receive the close-out package: as-builts, permits, inspection records, the certificate of occupancy, and warranties.
6. Support. You keep one contact at MASACO after you move in.

The 45 minute drive is ours to manage: site visits come in planned blocks, and the weekly update keeps you current between them.

MASACO is led by Sara Bannat, Founder and CEO, and Mahmoud Abu Saad, COO, and we’re a Goldman Sachs Preferred Vendor. Looking for a general contractor in Arlington, TX, for a suite off I-20, a restaurant near the stadiums, or a 1980s house that’s ready for its second act? Book a consultation. Bring the lease exhibit or photos of the rooms, and we’ll come back with a design you can see and a fixed-scope proposal in writing.

Building in Arlington: what to know.

Arlington's population has leveled off at about 402,000, and the typical single-family home dates to 1984, so most projects here start inside an existing building, whether a second-generation suite off I-20 or Cooper Street, a 1970s or 1980s house, or a storefront near the stadiums. Building permits, certificates of occupancy, and food establishment permits all run through Planning and Development Services on the second floor of City Hall and the ArlingtonPermits.com portal, under the 2021 International Codes. Pantego and Dalworthington Gardens sit inside Arlington's borders but are separate towns, so check which city your address is in before you apply.

Arlington neighborhoods and districts.

• Entertainment District
• Downtown Arlington
• UT Arlington campus
• Viridian
• Interlochen
• East Arlington
• South Arlington
• The Parks Mall at Arlington (I-20 and Cooper Street)
• Arlington Highlands (I-20 and Matlock Road)
• Great Southwest Industrial District
• I-30 corridor
• I-20 corridor

Arlington on the map.

Open Arlington, TX in Google Maps