SUGAR LAND, Texas - The City of Sugar Land and ACE have partnered to develop the Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land, the region's first state-of-the-art, indoor performance venue. The $85 million project will further position the city as a destination location for culture and entertainment. The companies celebrated the topping out of the venue Tuesday morning.
Dozens of people watched as construction workers placed a final beam on the structure, a few hundred feet about the ground, at a press conference.
"Once you get up there and you get accustomed with your surroundings, it just falls into place," said Patrick Zimmerman, one of the many workers on the project.
Zimmerman has been in construction for almost 40 years, so he knows when something is special.
"You can drive through this state and you can tell all your family about the jobs you built," said Zimmerman.
The Smart Financial Centre is expected to bring huge economic growth, attracting as many as 350,000 people a year when it opens in Fall of 2016.
"So it's gonna allow people that live in this area that are not going downtown to the Toyota center, that are not going to the Woodlands. They're going to their own hometown kind of venue," said Gary Becker with ACE. "It's an overgrown theater, so it's going to have all the real nice things, the intimacy of a theater. It's got four different capacity setups."
It can't happen overnight. There's got to be skilled people doing the hard work and today, the ceremony plus a hot meal, was a way to say thank you.
"It kind of gives your goosebumps on the back of your neck because it shows that you're doing a good job," said Zimmerman.
At about half way done, the project is in it's final stretch. It's one the City of Sugar Land and many other partners, take great pride in.
"The men and women, the support team and the workforce. They're the ones that make it happen. So it's a great day to appreciate them," said Becker.
