A North Texas master-planned community formerly known as EPIC City is casting out its name in hopes of squashing confusion around its rollout.
Developer Community Capital Partners rebranded the 402-acre project spanning Collin and Hunt counties as The Meadow, a move it says better reflects the site’s character and family-focused design, the Dallas Morning News reported.
The name change follows “public confusion” over whether EPIC City was meant to form its own municipality, representatives for the Plano-based firm told the outlet. In a statement, Community Capital Partners said the name change sought to “better describe the beautiful property and the inclusive, family-centered, mixed-use, master-planned community being designed.”
Plans for The Meadow, about 40 miles northeast of downtown Dallas, include more than 1,000 homes, senior and assisted-living facilities, apartments, a community college, a mosque, a K–12 faith-based school, retail, medical clinics and athletic fields.
Community Capital Partners is a for-profit venture founded by members of the East Plano Islamic Center, one of the region’s largest mosques.
The rebrand follows months of political heat. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and other top Republicans have called for investigations into the project, citing potential securities violations and discrimination concerns.
Paxton last month accused the developers of breaking federal and state securities laws, though he didn’t specify which ones, and said he was considering legal action pending a referral from the State Securities Board.
Other probes have fizzled. In September, the Texas Workforce Commission settled a Fair Housing Act complaint against the developers. The U.S. Department of Justice dropped its civil rights inquiry in June, which it had opened after Sen. John Cornyn raised concerns that the project might exclude non-Muslim residents.
Gov. Greg Abbott has said as many as a dozen state agencies are still looking into “potential illegal activities” tied to the development.
— Eric Weilbacher
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