A crowd of 300 braved the elements Tuesday, Jan. 28, to celebrate the grand opening of the Round Rock Sports Center. The $14.5 million building, located at 2400 Chisholm Trail Drive, is a flexible indoor sports facility built primarily with Hotel Occupancy Tax.

The facility is intended to draw new visitors to the city through our Sports Capital of Texas tourism program. It’s a winner so far – the Sports Center is already contracted for use every weekend through the end of July 2014, and over the past two weekends hosted a volleyball tournament and wrestling competition featuring a combined 2,150 participants.

Mayor Alan McGraw and the rest of the Round Rock City Council made an NBA-style entrance through the fog onto the floor of the 82,800-square-foot facility, complete with an announcer’s introduction. The Mayor also cut the net to celebrate the victorious, on-time completion of this first-class facility.

The local community will get plenty of use out of the new building as well. It’s booked every Monday-Thursday throughout the spring with local club sports team practices.

The Sports Center features six basketball courts and 12 volleyball courts with 47,775 square feet of flexible, open, playable space. It includes seating capacity for up to 1,300 spectators and 502 parking spots. Combine that with a full concession operation, referee lounge, locker rooms, a training room, LED scoreboard screens, and three large multi-purpose rooms that can be subdivided into nine smaller rooms.

In short, the facility can handle just about any indoor sporting event Round Rock can attract. Additionally, the facility can easily convert into a space for hosting expos, meetings, speakers and concerts.

Chad McKenzie has been named the general manager and it employs 9 full-time City of Round Rock employees in addition to 50-60 part-time employees for events. Nancy Yawn, Director of the Round Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, oversees tournament and event sales. The architect was Marmon Mok and Chasco built the facility.