The Project

The issue is not whether a destination attraction could ever belong in Waller County.

A project located on appropriately commercial land with direct highway access, adequate utilities and little conflict with nearby rural and residential uses would present a very different set of concerns.

The proposed TexasLand USA site is different. It sits in a rural area served locally by secondary roads and surrounded by homes, farms, ranches and other rural land uses in an area with longstanding agricultural and historical significance.

Supporting the scale TexasLand USA proposes would require substantial infrastructure that could affect drainage patterns as well as the overall rural character of the area.

Unlike many established destination attractions, TexasLand USA is also proposed as a stand-alone destination, rather than as part of an existing entertainment or tourism district.

The question:

Does this particular site have the access, infrastructure and surrounding land-use compatibility needed for a major destination attraction?

Public records show TexasLand USA entered the Greater Houston economic-development network in 2023 as “Project DQ.”

On August 17, 2023, the Greater Houston Partnership circulated a Request for Information (RFI) seeking 250+ contiguous acres for the project and asked regional communities to submit candidate sites, maps and community information. The RFI described a phased project beginning with 50 developable acres and eventually accommodating up to 2 million annual visitors.

The City of Waller Economic Development Corporation submitted two large candidate properties closely tied to the US 290 corridor: a 273-acre Beacon Hill/Indus site with direct US 290 access and a 377-acre Sorsby tract on FM 362, a short distance north of US 290. Both properties were actively listed for sale.

Waller EDC’s submission emphasized that US 290 is a six-lane, limited-access highway, approximately nine miles from Grand Parkway 99, with connections to I-10.

On September 6, 2023, a Hempstead-area recruitment email proposed that Hempstead or the surrounding region become a contender for TexasLand USA. The email described the company as a “startup out of Austin,” emphasized access to US 290, Grand Parkway 99, Highway 6 and I-10, and outlined a meeting that included available site options and physical site visits.

The current rural site was ultimately assembled through land purchases in March and May 2025. It lies about five miles south of US 290 and is reached locally by secondary roads.

The question:

What site-selection analysis led a project that began with a competitive regional search and candidate properties closely tied to the US 290 corridor to this particular rural property a few miles south of Hempstead?

TexasLand USA makes an extensive case for Greater Houston as an underserved entertainment market.

That may demonstrate a regional market opportunity.

But it does not automatically demonstrate demand for a rural site outside Hempstead.

The proposed site is approximately 75 to 85 minutes from downtown Houston under normal driving conditions. Actual travel times may be longer depending on traffic, weather, construction and local road conditions. TexasLand’s own market study reflects that general travel-time range.

Travel time, road access, nearby lodging and restaurants, complementary attractions and the overall value of making the trip all affect whether regional demand translates into visitation at a particular property.

The question:

What site-specific consumer research demonstrates that Houston-area demand transfers to a rural site 75 to 85 minutes from downtown Houston?

TexasLand USA’s market study projects 1.6 to 2.0 million annual visitors, based on a 20% to 25% market capture rate. Our review found that the study characterizes that capture rate as conservative without clearly showing how the percentage was derived.

Either way, the number deserves scrutiny.

If the projection is realistic, what would that visitor volume mean for roads, utilities, emergency services and nearby residents?

If the projection is not well supported, how dependable are the revenue and economic-impact assumptions built around it?

The question:

What evidence supports the capture-rate assumptions behind the attendance forecast?

A destination projected to attract as many as two million visitors a year requires far more than acreage.

It requires transportation capacity, water and wastewater service, drainage, emergency response, parking, utilities, staffing, crowd management and other supporting systems.

The question:

What must be built, expanded or publicly supported before this rural site could safely and reliably accommodate the visitor levels TexasLand projects?

TexasLand USA has said that more than half of the project’s economic impact would occur beyond its gates, citing guest spending at local restaurants, gas stations, lodging, shopping and other businesses.

That raises an important site-specific question.

The proposed TexasLand USA location does not currently sit within a developed tourism district filled with hotels, restaurants, shopping and other visitor-serving businesses. TexasLand also plans to provide many of those spending opportunities itself, including food, merchandise, entertainment and, in a later phase, lodging.

The important distinction is not simply whether visitors spend money. It is where they spend it.

Total visitor spending, revenue captured inside TexasLand USA and spending that actually reaches existing Hempstead and Waller County businesses are not the same thing.

The question:

What evidence shows how much projected visitor spending would actually reach existing Hempstead and Waller County businesses rather than be captured on-site or elsewhere in the region?

Successful theme parks are rarely the only thing supporting a visitor trip. They typically benefit from an established destination around them, including hotels, restaurants, other attractions, entertainment, shopping and visitor services.

San Antonio actively brands itself as the “Theme Park Capital of Texas®” and offers multiple major parks within a much broader tourism economy of hotels, restaurants and other visitor attractions.

COTALAND, which opened on September 26, 2026, was added to Circuit of the Americas, the purpose-built Formula 1 racing facility that opened in 2012 and already hosts major international motorsports events and large crowds. COTA was already an established visitor destination within the Austin metropolitan area before the theme park was added.

Dollywood’s site had already operated as an attraction for approximately 25 years before becoming Dollywood in 1986, within a tourism region that had been developing around the Smoky Mountains.

Hersheypark opened in 1906 and is now 120 years old, having developed incrementally alongside the broader Hershey destination.

TexasLand USA proposes something different.

The current site is rural, with no established cluster of hotels, restaurants, complementary attractions or visitor services around the property. TexasLand’s own development plan is also phased, meaning the full mix of on-site amenities would not be available at opening. For example, the planned hotel appears in Future Phase D, not the initial phase.

That creates an important business model tension. A stand-alone destination benefits from surrounding hotels, restaurants and other attractions that help make the trip worthwhile. At the same time, a park operator has an incentive to capture as much visitor spending as possible on-site. Yet TexasLand’s phased approach means many of those on-site amenities would not exist in the early stages either.

The question:

How does a stand-alone destination attract and retain major visitor volumes in its early phases when neither the surrounding tourism ecosystem nor the project’s full on-site amenities are yet in place?