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The Chinese city of Hangzhou has opened its “esports town,” spanning 3.94M square feet (17K square meter), and costing $280M to build.

LGD Gaming and Allied Esports have opened up a joint office and esports venue in the town. This will become LGD’s home venue for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL).

Hangzhou’s government plans to invest up to $1.26B across 14 esports projects by 2022, including an esports academy, hotel, office park, and hospital.

On Nov. 16, the Chinese city of Hangzhou opened up its esports town complex to the public. Having spent roughly ¥2B RMB ($280M USD) to build the 3.94M square foot space, Hangzhou’s esports town is among the biggest projects of its nature in China. The esports town will be operated by the Hangzhou government, according to Chinese government-run website People.cn.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The facility will be LGD’s home venue for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL).[/perfectpullquote]

One of the first facilities to open in the town is an esports venue for team organization LGD Gaming. Back in June of this year, LGD Gaming signed a partnership deal with Allied Esports to build its esports venue in Hangzhou. The facility will be LGD’s home venue for the League of Legends Pro League (LPL), the highest tier professional League of Legends competition in China. In addition, part of LGD’s management team will move into the town.

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Allied Esports is a global esports venue company, founded in 2016. It has built and operates several arenas worldwide, including the HyperX Esports Arena Las Vegas, which will host the League of Legends All-Star 2018 event on Dec, 6 to 8. The LGD arena is the fourth such facility that Allied Esports has opened in China—with the others based in Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Beijing.

The Hangzhou government has announced that it plans to build 14 esports facilities before 2022. It plans to spend up to ¥15.45B RMB ($2.22B) on the project, which will include an esports academy, esports-themed hotel, theme park, a business center, and even a hospital designed for esports players. Furthermore, as stated on People.cn, the Hangzhou government expects the esports town to attract over 10K aspiring esports professionals, and ¥1B RMB ($140M) in estimated tax revenues.

Hangzhou will play host to the 2022 Asian Games, which is expected to include esports as a medal event for the first time. After a demonstration event at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) director general Husain Al-Musallam said esports still requires a single international federation before it can be fully included.