November 7, 2024
After Falling Through in the Design District, TOCA Social Is Coming to Grandscape

More than two years ago, TOCA Social, an immersive experiential soccer and dining venue, revealed it would be bringing its first U.S. locale to the Design District. But after falling through due to unforeseen architectural complications in repurposing the Riverfront Blvd. property, the company partnered with Major League Soccer to push the project along and solidified a new space at Grandscape in The Colony.

With two venues open in England, TOCA Social at Grandscape is slated to open ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2025. Originally planned to occupy 57,000 square feet in the Design District, the new, ground-up build in The Colony will be a little less square footage than what was originally planned.

“I think the [Design District] project was a little bit more ambitious than we had hoped,” said Yoshi Maruyama, the CEO of TOCA Football, a soccer training center chain and parent company of TOCA Social. “There were some structural issues that we had to deal with in the specific location. And part of that was the challenge to get the permitting that was required to build a third level in that particular location. We continue to actually have good dialog with the landlord in the Design District, but we decided that our first location—at least structurally and from an engineering and construction perspective—needed to be easier to execute.”

TOCA Football, which is the official soccer training partner of the MLS, has made massive investments in the DFW region already, planting five soccer training centers ranging from 50,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet in the region. It has 36 training centers across the U.S. and Canada, but the company plans to make Dallas a flagship location for the entertainment brand. “TOCA Social is simply just a first step as we continue to expand in the DFW market,” Maruyama says. “Dallas has always been our number one target market when thinking about bringing TOCA Social to America. And from a long-term perspective, we actually think that the Dallas metro area can support a number of TOCA Social locations.”

Originally, the Topgolf-like soccer venue was slated to boast more than 50 boxes that can accommodate up to 12 patrons at a time. “[In The Colony], we’re looking at a very similar design to what we had originally anticipated,” Maruyama said.

The venue was initially anticipated to create 150 local jobs; Maruyama said not much has changed in that prediction.

To power the bays, TOCA Social pioneered proprietary gamified screen technology inspired by golf simulators. However there is one main difference between a TOCA simulator and a golf simulator. “Obviously, golf simulators have a static ball,” said Alex Harman, the president of TOCA Social. “What we developed is a technology that can track balls dynamically—which was one of the biggest challenges we had to overcome.”

DFW isn’t the only market the company is targeting ahead of the 2026 World Cup. “We are gunning to open multiple locations across the country prior to the World Cup,” Maruyama said. “We’re working in partnership with the host cities and the MLS, as well as local teams, to identify sites and to determine what our rollout schedule and plan will be, but our plan is to open multiple locations prior to the World Cup.”

Author

Ben Swanger

Ben Swanger is the managing editor for D CEO, the business title for D Magazine. Ben manages the Dallas 500, monthly…


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