FRISCO, Texas — Read this story and more North Texas business news from our partners at the Dallas Business Journal
The sprawling, $520 million Omni PGA Frisco Resort officially opened Tuesday with a ceremony in which Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the project “a golfing and resort mecca that is going to grow and expand beyond anybody's imagination.”
The 660-acre destination resort has two 18-hole championship golf courses, 500 guest rooms, 49 suites, 10 four-bedroom luxury ranch homes, eight retail spaces, 13 restaurant and bar options, four pools and a Topgolf lounge, among other highlights and amenities.
The highly anticipated project has been in the works for more than two years. It will anchor a broader multibillion-dollar development that is going in just off of the Dallas North Tollway and Highway 380 in northwest Frisco that includes an already open PGA of America headquarters and will include a Universal Studios theme park.
At a ribbon cutting marking the opening, Abbott praised the partnerships that made the Omni PGA Hotel and Resort a reality.
“Enormous structures and facilities like this don't happen on their own,” Abbott said. “They happen as a result of and they succeed far better when people from disparate fields come together, collaborate together, work together to provide these remarkable facilities.”
Omni officials, city and state leaders, and hundreds of other guests applauded as the doors to the Omni PGA Frisco Resort opened for the first official time following the ribbon cutting.
Abbott said Texas ranks No. 1 for the number of new jobs added last year and the number added since COVID struck, and projects like the Omni are to credit for the surge.
Some 8,000 people applied for the 1,000 jobs that the hotel and resort has filled, said Jeff Smith, Omni PGA Frisco Resort vice president and managing director.
“For every one we hired, we had eight people in line, so we hired the elite class of associates to work here,” he said.
Frisco Mayor Jeff Cheney said the project “almost died 100 deaths along the way” to fruition, in large part because of hurdles created by the COVID pandemic.
“It took every piece of what we affectionately call team Frisco, including our private partners, to make today a reality,” Cheney said.
On May 23, the resort will host of the Senior PGA Championship.