The venue would arise near North Interstate 35 and Loop 340, directly across the interstate from Central Texas Marketplace, and near Baylor Scott & White Hillcrest Medical Center and Legends Crossing, the development serving as home to Walk-On’s Bistreaux & Bar, P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Chuy’s, a Tex-Mex restaurant, and Saltgrass Steak House, among others.

This news comes shortly after the Plano-based Cinemark chain announced it hopes to place an entertainment complex on acreage between New Road and Loop 340 along South Interstate 35 frontage. The theater would offer reserved seating in all auditoriums, luxury loungers with footrests and a lobby lounge to include alcohol service. It would anchor a mixed-use development called Cottonwood Creek Market that eventually would feature 285,000 square feet of retail, residential and restaurant components, according to Cinemark.

Cinemark has not returned calls seeking comment beyond its press release, which states the company hopes to complete the entertainment center by spring of next year.

Meanwhile, the development the council will address Tuesday would occupy 32 acres along the Interstate 35 North frontage road, right across the interstate from Central Texas Marketplace, the sprawling retail-and-restaurant venue featuring users including Kohl’s, Cabela’s and La Madeleine French Cafe and Bakery.

An estimated $25 million would be spent to create the new venue, according to the city council information packet prepared by city economic development director Melett Harrison. When completed, possibly by summer of 2020, it would generate $28 million in taxable annual sales, with the city receiving an estimated $420,000, or 1.5 percent, in sales tax rebates annually, according to the packet.

The Waco City Council will consider a proposal to split its annual take with the developers for 10 years, meaning the group would pocket about $2.14 million over the life of the contract. Waco would get an identical amount.

“We see it as a strategic opportunity to take a large tract of land that has infrastructure burdens and have the developer resolve them using a portion of the revenues they’re going to generate off the site,” Assistant City Manager Bradley Ford said of the venture.

He said the approach does not necessarily represent a new standard for assisting would-be developers. Rather, he said, “a unique set of circumstances” prompted its placement on the agenda.

Bland Cromwell, who has been marketing the acreage for an investment group that includes residents of Waco and Dallas, said improvements to the 32-acre site represent a mere fraction of what the larger site could become.

“This is just phase one of a 352-acre development that would stretch along interstate frontage to that hard corner at I-35 and Loop 340,” Cromwell said. “This is the gateway for that whole big tract. The buyers, whom I can’t name at this time, have a vision, a master plan. We will have to let the market dictate exactly how it plays out. Things could change. It could all be retail, or it could be mixed use. We just don’t know.

“The goal, if everything works out as planned, is to have the entertainment phase open before summer of next year.”

He said conversations with the city have been ongoing, and he expects the development group to make a formal presentation that would include more specifics in the days or weeks after the city council’s action.

Cromwell previously marketed the site on behalf of the Dallas-based Stainback Organization, which had an option on the land it would exercise if it made progress on creating a “lifestyle” center there that might include entertainment, fitness, restaurant and residential users.

Stainback is not involved in this project, Cromwell said.

— WACOTRIB