Residents request phased approval to ensure developer accountability.
Main Square Development President Hugo Morales founded his firm in 2024. The company seeks to construct its 1,550-acre Terra Nova community in Terrell.
Council members aren’t ready to vote on a 1,550-acre community proposed in Terrell amid continued resident backlash.
Main Square Development seeks to construct its massive Terra Nova community along Griffith Road near FM 245. The pitched development will feature 3,600 single-family homes, about 1,200 multifamily units, roughly 145 acres of parks and a 50-acre mixed-use center, Terra Nova Village.
Hugo Morales, president of Main Square Development, previously told Dallas Business Journal the firm hopes Terra Nova seamlessly embeds itself into the existing fabric of the city while also elevating “the city’s attractiveness as a place to live, work, and raise a family.” But the project continues to face backlash from residents, leading the Terrell City Council to postpone a vote on the development until Nov. 4 during its Sept. 16 meeting.
One resident, Pamela Robertson, told council members that she knows Terrell is the next city to grow “because Forney is already outgrown,” and asked that the chamber consider approving the project one phase at a time to allow Main Square to prove itself.
“It’s a first-time development for this developer, first time to take on the size of a project,” she said. “Don’t just rubber stamp the whole thing.” Robertson said the project should be approved in phases.
“Let [Morales] prove himself,” she said. “Get one phase done. Get 80% to 90% complete, then go on to the next one, if it’s been built as promised. We’re talking 16 to 20 years out. Things change so rapidly now… We don’t want to be looking like Forney, Frisco, Prosper and Princeton.”
While many North Texas cities grapple with growth, Princeton in particular has struggled, as evidenced by city leaders implementing a temporary moratorium on new residential construction to address strains on infrastructure like water, wastewater and roadways. The city, named the nation’s fastest-growing city in 2025, has seen its population explode so much it outpaced its ability to provide essential services.
Chris Snapp, Terrell’s director of municipal development, told the council that staff has already conducted a traffic impact analysis on the project and plan to revisit the analysis as the project progresses. Snapp previously told the Terrell Planning and Zoning Commission that the development’s 14- to16-phase buildout will allow the city to work with Main Square and hold the company accountable.
“There will be stages as it goes through, and as each stage goes through, we’ll do the traffic impact analysis to make sure we don’t have any congestion or constraints. They’re identified, and then we have solutions developed at the time,” Snapp told council members.
Terra Nova is Main Square’s first project since it was established last year, but Morales reminded the chamber that he has 20 years of experience developing large residential, mixed-use, industrial and office developments across the country. Prior to founding Main Square, he served as the vice president of Kimley Horn for two decades.
“I’m putting my reputation on the line with this project, with this company,” he said. “It’s much easier to create a good community when you have a larger area of land than if you have 20 acres here, then 20 acres there and then they don’t work together.” Morales said Main Square is “more than qualified to take on a project of this size and even larger.”
“It’s not just me,” he said. “It’s my team of consultants also with multiple decades of experience.”
Original version appears in Dallas Business Journal.