A hotel company that runs the city-owned conference center and parking garage beside its Frisco hotel gets its day before a state appeals court next week, four months after a Collin County judge threw out its lawsuit against the city.
The Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas has set oral argument for Tuesday, Nov. 10, in JDHQ Hotels LLC v. The City of Frisco, according to the court's online docket. City Council members received legal advice on the case in a closed session at their Nov. 3 meeting and took no action afterward, the city's action summary shows.
What the fight is about
Frisco paid roughly the first $20 million to design and build the conference center and about $8 million for the parking facility, using public debt, and owns both buildings, the city says in its brief.
Under a master development agreement with John Q. Hammons Hotels, which called for an Embassy Suites hotel on neighboring land, the city leased both facilities to the hotel developer at a rent tied to the debt payments on its 2003 certificates of obligation. JDHQ took over those leases by assignment in 2018, its brief says.
The leases' first terms ended Oct. 4, 2025. JDHQ says it exercised options to extend them in April 2025, which it argues would carry the conference center lease to 2035 and the parking lease to 2040, with new rent to be negotiated.
The company says the city pushed it to buy the facilities instead and would not negotiate rent in good faith, and it asked a court to declare the extensions and a parking garage purchase option valid. It is seeking no money damages.
The city's position is that the leases left the extension rent to future agreement, the two sides never agreed on a figure, and both leases ended on Oct. 4, 2025.
