Main Square Development seeks to jump straight to work on its 1,550-acre Terra Nova master-planned community following recent zoning approval of the development headed to a small boomtown on the edge of the region.
The Plano-based firm aims to begin work on the first piece of its $3 billion development in January, Main Square President Hugo Morales told Dallas Business Journal. Phase one of the massive project will focus on 209 residential lots from State Highway 205 to Poetry Road, aiming to ease some of the traffic concerns residents previously voiced.
Overall, Terra Nova will take about 15 to 20 years to build and include about 1,200 multifamily units; 3,600 single-family homes and a 20-acre retail center. The development could generate over $80 million in annual property tax revenue once it’s fully completed. Home prices in the community will start in the mid $300,000s.
The Terrell City Council approved shifting zoning for the community during its Nov. 4 meeting. The zoning approval came a little more than a year after Main Square began negotiations for the Terra Nova site. The firm first purchased about 300 acres in the city and then focused on aggressively acquiring land around the sites it owned, officially closing on the Terra Nova property in March.
“We did this in an [accelerated] time, and [city of Terrell staff] worked with us on that,” Morales said. “They were committed to getting us to doing their part. We really appreciate the input from the citizens of Terrell, because their input is very important, and that’s what makes a community great.”
The final green light came following months of resident opposition. Several residents expressed concerns about the massive project including about rising property taxes, increased traffic and inadequate infrastructure while others voiced excitement about the amenities and potential revenue the project could bring.
Morales anticipated much of the opposition. While Main Square was only established last year, Morales has dealt with more complicated and contentious cases during his tenure serving as the vice president of KimleyHorn and expected to hear concerns about traffic and land uses. It’s why the firm sought to address some of the worry ahead of time in its design plan for the community with the inclusion of 27 neighborhood parks and infrastructure improvements.
Despite the backlash, the growth occurring and projected in Terrell made it the perfect home for the Terra Nova community. Kaufman County experienced the second largest percentage growth in the country last year, increasing 6% to a new total population of about 198,000, according to estimates from the Census Bureau. It’s a growth boom Main Square seeks to take advantage of as early as possible and that’s attracted activity such as the 120-acre purchase from Amazon, the $320 million Texas Health Forney hospital and the first Lowe’s Home Improvement and Garden Center in the city of Kaufman.
“In DFW, you have a large array of communities. Some are quite expensive. Some are already fully developed, think Plano. Frisco is getting there. Prosper still has some land, but it’s very expensive,” Morales said. “If you look around DFW, there’s areas where growth hasn’t pushed as much as there, but the growth is still coming. We made our projects and look at our studies. The development is jumping in Terrell, so we’re hoping we are capitalizing on that development growth jump in Terrell early.”
In addition to beginning work on Terra Nova, Main Square is also planning its next project. The company is focused on acquiring more land and seeks to expand south in areas such as Cedar Hill, Midlothian and Waxahachie. The size of its next project is still in the works, but Morales wants to continue building master-planned communities.
“We understand that the larger your area is, the better your master plan will be because you can mix uses better [and] can create value on certain areas that wouldn’t exist otherwise,” Morales said. “That’s the beauty of planning master plans. We know that a master plan community can create more value than a little hodgepodge of subdivisions here and there without identity.”
Original version appears in the Dallas Business Journal.