Why Theme Parks?

 

Theme parks are long-term financial and cultural investments. Regional parks operate for generations, becoming the “must-do” for grandparents with their grandchildren, or the aunt and uncle’s annual visit to town. Unlike a tech company racing to out-build a competitor's latest model, or a pharmaceutical company facing a patent cliff, a theme park’s core assets produce for decades on modest, predictable maintenance capital, commanding strong margins and premium valuations as a result. The average S&P 500 company lasts about twenty years; a well-run park can last over a century.

 

That durability holds up in downturns, too. Regional parks have historically held attendance flat, or even grown, through recessions, benefitting from their focus on residents within driving distance and the evergreen need for entertainment and optimism in tough times. It’s part of why physical experiences like TexasLand offer genuine portfolio diversification: a hedge against energy prices, since cheaper gas leaves families with more discretionary income for road trips, and a counterweight to portfolios built on software and artificial intelligence. Theme parks are an antidote to the screen fatigue that worries so many parents today.

 

economic & cultural impact

​

A park’s impact reaches beyond its gates. Per research from the International Association of Amusement Parks & Attractions, over half of the revenue associated with Texas attractions is generated outside parks, through Guest spending at local hotels, restaurants, retail, and gas stations. Parks’ engagement with local suppliers further uplifts surrounding communities. TexasLand will create hundreds of jobs in its first year and ultimately employ over a thousand “Wranglers,” with a hiring philosophy rooted in Texas hospitality: opportunities for teenagers earning a first paycheck, retirees looking to stay active, veterans transitioning to civilian work, and people with disabilities building meaningful careers. Management roles will provide advancement opportunities for frontline Wranglers, and TexasLand will offer high-skilled and technical roles across entertainment, maintenance, food service, hospitality, and animal care.

 

Lastly, TexasLand is designed to give both student and adult Guests a new appreciation for Texas history and culture, and to combine with the region's existing attractions to create an authentically Texan ecosystem for tourists and locals alike. The master plan conserves dozens of acres of working pasture, creating “agritainment” opportunities for Guests to experience Texas livestock and ranching traditions firsthand, while programming like the Showdeo arena, cattle drives, and live music amphitheater offers new ways to experience timeless Texas sports and entertainment. Research from the University of Texas found that one in three Texans identifies as Texan first and American second. TexasLand will stand as a permanent showcase of that pride: the best of Texas, brought to life in one place, for every family who calls it home and every family who wishes they did.

 

Why Texas?

 

Regional parks thrive on the coasts and in the Midwest, but the Texas market is dramatically underserved. One in sixteen Americans now lives in the “Texas Triangle” between Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States and is widely expected to surpass Chicago as the third-largest by 2035. Houston is also the #1 US metro for growth in children under eighteen, adding roughly 116,000 kids to its population from 2019 to 2024, while Los Angeles lost about 246,000 over the same period. Yet it’s the only metro of the top five without a regional park. Worried about the heat? Orlando and Houston have virtually identical climates - humidity, rainfall, days over 90 degrees. Orlando is home to ten major parks; Houston has none.

 

The top-rated regional parks in the country, destinations like Dollywood and Silver Dollar City, weren’t built around franchised intellectual property, but the culture of the region they call home. Disneyland’s early years weren’t filled with movie characters, but with stock stories from the public imagination: pirates, haunted mansions, and railroads. The park also served as an equalizer of sorts; until recent pricing hikes, a family of four could save for tickets without blowing their budget. These two elements - archetypal stories told in immersive settings, and accessibility for young families - belong in the unique Texas landscape. Texas has a rich history often overlooked by popular entertainment, and its families deserve their own place to experience that history brought to life.

 

massive, unmet demand

​

The demand is palpable: Houston families drive hours to San Antonio for a theme park experience, and the region's biggest seasonal attractions, from the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo to the Texas Renaissance Festival, draw enormous crowds despite operating only a few weeks a year. In a July 2025 survey, the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs found that 75% of Harris County residents with children under eighteen would be enthusiastic about a destination theme park opening in the Houston area. TexasLand is designed to meet that demand year-round, the first theme park to be built for this market since AstroWorld, which closed in 2005 not for lack of profitability, but because Six Flags was overleveraged. AstroWorld averaged annual attendance of 1.5 million across its first twenty years of operation, on roughly a third of Houston’s current population: a strong showing, even by today’s standards.

 

Company History

 

Lizzy McGee, a sixth-generation Houstonian, was working in global M&A and strategy at Disney Parks when the idea first took hold. In 2020, applying to the Stanford Graduate School of Business, she described her vision plainly: to build the HEB of theme parks, a park as beloved and accessible to Texas families as the grocery chain that puts "Texas Tough" on a roll of aluminum foil. She saw Houston become one of the largest, fastest-growing, most diverse metros in the country, and wondered why there wasn’t a park to match.

 

At Stanford, Lizzy partnered with co-founder James Underwood to turn the idea into a formal venture. They launched a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $82,000, beating its goal with backers from around the world, proof the appetite for TexasLand reached well beyond Texas before the company had a single institutional investor. The campaign helped fund a study by Entertainment + Culture Advisors, a firm whose roots trace back to Buzz Price, the consultant who helped Walt Disney choose the sites for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Their conclusion: Greater Houston was a compelling location for a Texas-inspired theme park.

 

progress & milestones

​

From there, the team worked with the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston First, regional economic development partners, and the Texas Department of Transportation, evaluating more than twenty potential sites across the metro. TexasLand received multiple proposals from potential municipal partners, including signed letters of intent, and prioritized land that was out of the floodplain, owned outright, and met the project’s other key criteria - the same instinct that led top-rated parks like Silver Dollar City and Dollywood to lean into their natural settings, sit well off the interstate, and still draw millions of visitors annually.

 

The team has since grown to include AOA, the design and construction management firm behind projects for Disney, Universal, and Dolly Parton; Kimley-Horn, the civil engineering firm behind Universal's newest parks in Frisco and Orlando; and operational advisors who successfully launched and ran Disney cruises, Universal parks, and top Las Vegas venues. TexasLand's Advisory Board brings decades of experience in real estate development, entertainment, and finance, including Mark Carleton, former Chief Financial Officer of Liberty Media, and Brian Patterson, founder of White Star Real Estate. The TexasLand brand carries national and international trademark protection, and rather than license outside characters, TexasLand has created its own cast, inspired by every corner of Texas history and folklore: from daring individuals like Jean Lafitte and Barnstorming Bessie to the cowboys, vaqueros, and pioneers who helped shape the Lone Star State - and the stars beyond.

 

TexasLand is a member of the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, the Themed Entertainment Association, and the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Visit our Team page to learn more about the people building TexasLand.

 

Join Us

 

Theme parks offer the rare opportunity to combine returns with impact and legacy. If you share our conviction that Houston, and Texas more broadly, deserves a destination on par with the great parks of the world, please use the Contact Us page to reach out. You can also stay updated by signing up for our newsletter on the Home page, where we share periodic updates and sources of inspiration.