Accomplishments
Mayor Cheney has accomplished many things for the residents and businesses of Frisco during his tenure. Listed below are each by category with a brief description.
If you would like to know more about a particular subject or have questions, please don’t hesitate to contact Mayor Cheney.
Jeff Cheney
Taxes
- Frisco has one of the lowest tax rates in the region.
- Mayor Cheney instituted a Homestead Tax Exemption immediately after being elected in 2017. This has been increased twice during his term to 12.5% currently, with plans to get to the State maximum of 20%.
- Continued increases for the Senior Tax Exemption and a freeze once you turn 65 years old.
Quality of Life
- Opened the Northeast Park in Frisco, which includes one of the largest skate parks in Texas.
- Master planned the Northwest Community Park, which includes nature trails and begins construction this year.
- Grand Park opened the first of its Trail System. Grand Park is larger than NY Central Park. Designing the 1st Phase of it now.
- Frisco on the Green Park is starting construction later this year and will provide natural habitat.
- Master planned the entire trail network for now and future. The trail network connects with Plano and goes all the way to White Rock Lake.
- New Frisco Library opened. It was $60MM and under budget. It will meet Frisco’s population needs to full build-out. It is the 6th largest public library in the state of Texas.
- Opened The Grove Active Adult Center. It provides services and activities for senior adults, including arts, athletics, and even pickleball courts.
- Reused the previous Senior Center to adapt to a new Municipal Courthouse to serve our growing community.
Significant Frisco Developments
- The HALL Group invests $500M to redevelop part of its existing HALL Park in Frisco. This includes a 4-star hotel and a Klyde Warren Park-style city park filled with art. This is under construction now. Phase 1 will be complete by the end of 2023.
- The Fields development comprises over 2500 acres which will include single-family housing, commercial office buildings, retail, hotels, including a Ritz-Carlton hotel, and restaurants. Portions of this development are open now and will be opening by May. The next big phase, which includes a Legacy West-style area, will open by 2026.
- The PGA and Omni Resort are inside the Fields development. The PGA HQ moved from southern Florida to Frisco. The HQ opened last year. The Omni Resort, which is the largest hotel or resort under construction in America, opens May 2. The end of May, the PGA will host their first championship tournament, the KitchenAid Senior Tournament. 25 more PGA championships are already scheduled, including a Ryders Cup in 2040. The PGA and Omni Resort is projected to make an economic impact of $2.5B over 20 years in Frisco.
- Universal Studios just purchased land from the Fields development to build a small theme park, targeting young children ages 4-10. It is a new concept theme park for Universal. The theme park will only utilize 34 acres. The complete development is 97 acres which will include a 300-room themed hotel and surface parking. Universal will bring $400M in direct economic impact to Frisco and $3.5B of indirect impact over 20 years.
- Firefly Park is a 220-acre, $3.5B development on the north side of the PGA and is being developed by Wilks Development. It will be completed by early 2026 and includes a 5-star boutique hotel, commercial office towers, residential, restaurants, retail, and a 45-acre park.
Density Reduction Strategy
- Worked with City Council in 2017 to pass an ordinance requiring mixed-use developers to build non-residential first before they built residential. This stopped any developers from building multi-family residences and then slow-rolling or not building the rest of their planned mixed-use development.
- Frisco passed the first in the region, and possibly in Texas, an ordinance to require a minimum of 10% meaningful open space in all developments. When it was passed in 2017, developers were extremely unhappy. Now, they admit that the open space requirement forced them to develop better spaces, resulting in a higher economic impact for them.
- Passed a maximum number of residential units per acre formula. Before Mayor Cheney, it was unlimited.
- As Mayor, we negotiated with developers to remove many multi-family units from their previously-approved zoning. Historically, the zoning was poor, and there were too many multi-family units. We have worked with developers to lower the number massively.
Frisco Rail District Master Plan
- Developing the downtown Historic Main Street in Frisco, was one of his top priorities when becoming Mayor. A private developer took interest and, through the support of the City of Frisco, has completed some impressive, successful projects with several more in the pipeline. Working with the private sector was key to redeveloping the downtown.
- Expanding an alternate main artery through the downtown, extending sidewalks, and creating a plaza area for live performances and community events is currently under development with a completion date of 2024.
Education
- From the first conversation with the University of North Texas President Neal Smatresk, to the grand opening was 5 years. Once the idea was introduced, the City of Frisco worked closely to acquire the land, donate the land to UNT, work through state-level approvals, and design and construct Phase 1 of a future 150-acre campus.
- Today, 3000 students are using the new Frisco Landing campus. It’s forecasted, in 20 years, there will be 20K students at UNT-Frisco.
- UNT is a Tier 1 Carnegie Research University.
Arts
- We increased the Arts Tourism Grant fund to 1.25% per capita, funded by our Hotel Occupancy Tax.
- The City of Frisco expanded its quality of life offerings to curate arts and cultural events through Play Artistically.
- The private developer built a small community theater. It’s the Nack Theater in the historic Rail District.
- We are encouraging business owners and developers to bring more live music venues and performers to Frisco.
- The City of Frisco is now the 42nd City to receive the Music Friendly Community Designation by the Texas Music Office.
- The Ford Center at The Star is hosting the Academy of Country Music Awards in May.
- Building a world-class performing arts center is a longstanding desire of the community and has proven to be the most difficult item on the list. We are still working on making this a reality, with land donated by Craig Hall and HALL Park. We recently launched an operational study to find local, regional, and national entities interested in performing in Frisco. The Performing Arts Center will not be funded solely by the City, so more donors will be necessary. It will be done as a public-private partnership, which is Frisco’s recipe for success.
- Initiated the first “Art in the Mayor’s Office” in partnership with the Visual Arts Guild of Frisco to showcase local artists in his 5th floor office at City Hall. This program has now been replicated by other mayors in the region.
Infrastructure
- Being the fastest-growing city in the nation for over a decade creates infrastructure challenges to keep up with population growth.
- Currently, over $200MM in road construction projects are happening now in northwest Frisco to prepare for the heavy growth in that area and the PGA and its many events.
Public Safety
- Frisco is consistently listed in the top 5 safest cities in America. For the last 2 years, 2022 & 2023, Frisco has been the #1 Safest City.
- Frisco developed a proprietary system, SAFER, that provides complete visual data inside and outside all of our 72 public schools.
- Frisco developed a sophisticated, world-class Emergency Operations Center.
- Frisco built a state-of-the-art training facility for police, fire, and emergency services. Other cities use it, too.
- Frisco is building its 9th fire station. The 10th fire station is on the May 6th ballot for bond approval.
EDC Wins-Economic Development
- When becoming Mayor in 2017, one of his first initiatives was reorganizing the Economic Development Corporation (EDC). He refocused efforts on attracting large and Fortune 500 businesses and adding jobs. We cast off the things that the EDC shouldn’t be involved in, like building and managing developments. We sold off property that did not fit the criteria of bringing jobs to Frisco and attracting big businesses.
- Through a nationwide search, we found a new President to run the EDC, and he has hired an outstanding team.
- We won our first Fortune 500 corporate relocation, Keurig Dr. Pepper. What many don’t realize is that they were leaving the region and moving the headquarters to Boston, where Keurig is located. We convinced them to stay in Texas, and a built a new home for them in 2 years, overlooking the Dallas Cowboys practice field.
- We won our first Fortune 100 corporate relocation, TIAA, a financial firm.
- The Frisco EDC is focusing not just on Fortune 500s but on tech, innovation, and startups.
Financial Stability
- The City of Frisco has the top ISO rating, which allows Frisco residents to receive a discount on their home insurance.
- The City of Frisco has a AAA S&P bond rating.
- When on the City Council, one of his big contributions was beginning a Capital Reserve Fund. It is utilized for rainy days and any unforeseen projects.
Veterans
- When becoming the Mayor of Frisco, one of his big initiatives was to elevate the role of veterans in our community. An ad hoc committee already existed the Frisco Veterans Advisory Committee. I used that group as the foundation for my efforts. The group grew quickly and began implementing big ideas to promote and bring awareness to veterans to create a “veteran-ready” city.
- Through the Frisco Veteran Advisory Committee, we became an official Purple Heart City, instituted the Veteran of the Year award, and expanded the Veteran Memorial in Frisco Commons Park.
- Also, the Frisco Veteran Advisory Committee created the Veteran of The Year Award, which goes to a deserving veteran who has served our country but continues to serve our community.
- Because of these efforts, we have experienced an influx of veterans who are moving to Frisco.
Culture & Diversity
- Frisco is comprised of people who come from many different cultures. As Mayor, he chooses to embrace all our cultures. By recognizing all people from different backgrounds, it opens the door to real dialogue and a platform to build a unified community.
- In Frisco, we celebrate all cultural and religious holidays, including Christmas, Diwali, Hanukkah, and Ramadan.
- Because of the involvement of our Frisco Indian community, they organized many events for the City of Frisco leaders to get to know the Indian community. We enjoyed Chai with Cheney and Cricket with Cheney.
- Out of the involvement with the Indian community, other groups of people stepped forward and wanted to increase their involvement with the City. We approved a Diversity & Inclusion Committee. A group that meets to provide awareness of all cultures represented in Frisco and an opportunity for people to connect over common ideals, like supporting families, education, and public safety.
- One of the annual events that Mayor Cheney is most proud to be associated with is the MLK Scholarship Competition Gala. Once a year, this event sells out. Five Frisco ISD seniors prepare an original speech on a common theme, they are judged and then awarded college scholarships.
Change & Emergency Management
- The City of Frisco was led by the same City Manager for almost 35 years, George Purefoy. George’s impact on the city is legendary. When George decided to retire, replacing him would be a difficult and important task.
- City Council and Mayor Cheney led the nationwide for a City Manager. We found Wes Pierson, and he started in August 2022.
- During the Covid pandemic, the City of Frisco kept all our businesses open as long as we could until Governor Abbott forced them to close.
- We were intentional about waving our ordinances and finding ways to keep businesses open. We also got CARES funds into business hands without unnecessary red tape and delay.
- During all the social unrest of 2020 that began with the George Floyd death, we proudly had no incidence in Frisco.