League City works towards creating possible Epicenter
League City is a growing community with the intent of becoming a welcoming tourist location. As a way to bring in more revenue and attract tourists, the city is exploring the possibility of creating a destination that attracts thousands of people beyond League City residents: the Epicenter.
The proposed Epicenter would contain many different features in which fun, play and eat intertwine like a miniature utopia. Although the Epicenter does not have the official green light just yet, if approved, it will have a convention center that will hold events such as concerts, professional and amateur sporting events and a possible swimming area. There would be hotels, restaurants and shopping sites to engage in and broaden the scope for visitors and tourists when they are looking for a place to stay.
“It would have everything from hotels, a convention center, a minor hockey team, a minor league baseball team, restaurants, lots of retail, a real mixed-use development,” said Sarah Greer Osborne, communications director of League City.
The city is in the beginning stages of planning and making contracts to bring the Epicenter to life.
“The Epicenter, right now, is a proposed public/private partnership that we are looking to form with a private developer that would essentially rent the land from us,” Osborne said.
The reasoning behind choosing League City as the location for the Epicenter is because League City is in between Houston and Galveston. Proponents believe being in the center of these two highly populated cities would create a good stopping point for entertainment, food, shopping and more.
“We are in the way of predictable growth; we have drivers in the market that show there is a demand for this type of product (the Epicenter); we are on I-45; we have over 12 million tourists that come through League City every year,” said Scott Livingston, director of economics development.
The Epicenter would replace the Sportsplex located right off of I-45 and on SH-96. The Sportsplex is where League City holds most of its sporting events and is operating at full capacity, to the point where they are having to turn teams away. This is another reason why the Epicenter is being considered. The current Sportsplex would be torn down and the Epicenter built in its current location, and a new Sportsplex would be built at a different location off of the west side of I-45.
The Epicenter, if greenlit, would cost millions of dollars to be built and sustained.
“There are several [funding] sources,” Livingston said. “The primary source will be through the private market.”
Although League City owns the property, the funds for the Epicenter will not come from taxpayer dollars since the land will be leased out to the Epicenter. The Epicenter corporation and other investors would not only pay for the Epicenter project building but also pay for the movement and building project for the new Sportsplex.
“We do not ever want to build anything in League City that is not going to be self-sustaining,” Livingston said. “We want something that will be able to stand on its own merit and address demands that are in the market place.”
Livingston said the private market and investors pushing for the Epicenter need to prove that this will be a successful project that is also self-sustaining so that it will minimize risk for League City.
Osborne explains that with talks of the Epicenter project possibly happening, there is still a lot of T’s that need to be crossed and I’s that need to be dotted before anything concrete happens. If the Epicenter project does come into play, League City will not only become like the City Center destination in Houston, but it will also be a way for the City of League City to grow and expand their horizons as a community.
