Mixed-Use Developers in North Texas Prioritize Infrastructure

By Taylor Williams

If you build it, they will come — assuming “it” is equipped with the all the facilities, necessities and conveniences of 21st-century living. 

As residents and consumers, it is remarkably easy to overlook the critical pieces of infrastructure that enable these necessities and conveniences. From the perspective of end users, these facilities and systems are not instrumental to the success of commercial and residential developments because they are taken for granted as minimal requirements for occupancy. Further, in many cases, the infrastructure is not visible to the naked eye. 

Yet for developers, particularly those in high-growth regions like North Texas, infrastructure is anything but an afterthought. 

“In the eyes of developers, infrastructure is a primary aspect of any project,” says Jack Turnage, development manager at Wildcatter Realty Partners, the developer behind The Greenbelt, a 325-acre mixed-use project in Hunt County. “Without that, the only way to navigate our site is on horseback.”

Located in Greenville on the northeastern outskirts of Dallas, The Greenbelt is one of numerous large-scale mixed-use projects sprouting up in the region. Plans call for close to  1,000 single-family and multifamily units; several hundred thousand square feet of commercial space; numerous restaurant pad sites; a hotel with a conference center; and an 18-hole disc golf course. In addition, the development will feature just over nine miles of hiking and biking trails that will provide connectivity throughout the development and to Greenville’s future sports park.

To jumpstart the project, Wildcatter sought and received approval from Greenville’s Planning & Zoning Committee to rezone a 20-acre parcel from agriculture to multifamily use. Freestone Development is now constructing a 300-unit apartment community, Freestone Greenville, on that site, with units scheduled to come on line next spring. In return, Wildcatter undertook major public roadway improvements at the site, and Turnage says there’s more to come.

“To service our development, we constructed a public roadway improvement project in which we widened and rebuilt a portion of Monty Stratton Parkway on the west side, from I-30 to the edge of our property,” he recalls. “We then began construction of Traders Road, another public thoroughfare for the City of Greenville. Construction of Phase I of the public improvements has been completed, and we’ll soon start Phase II, which will eventually connect where the roadway stops now to Wesley Street/Highway 34.”

“With the given economic challenges in today’s environment, we often find ourselves exploring the uses of public financing tools to expedite developments,” Turnage continues. “We definitely had to bring some offsites to our site, some of which were previously established water and sewer projects. We have an in-house construction company that handles utility work, installing water and sewer availability all over the site, and it’s a huge relief to have that infrastructure already in place.”

For developers looking to accommodate and capitalize on the phenomenal growth of North Texas, it’s never too early to start laying infrastructural groundwork. And the use of the word “phenomenal” is not hyperbole. 

The North Texas Commission, a nonprofit organization based in Irving, identifies the region as a 9,000-square-mile area that spans 13 counties and 150 cities and is home to approximately 7.5 million people. The organization’s 2024 “profile report” states that the region’s population grows by one person every 3.3 minutes, which translates to 429 people per day, or 156,585 people per year. 

That’s a lot of demand for developers to meet in terms of housing, necessity retail, leisure and entertainment and even workspaces and hotels. Each of those structures requires power, plumbing and Wi-Fi — to say nothing of the network of roadways, trails and open public spaces required to seamlessly connect them all into a cohesive community. 

As such, much of the work these individuals and companies do before shovels hit the ground involves developing facilities to enable basic comfort and hygiene, remote work and ease of commute to local establishments. These processes can be incredibly costly and time-consuming, and developers must rely on partnerships with the municipalities they serve to deliver crucial nodes and pieces of infrastructure without going bankrupt. 

Size Matters

The bigger the project, the more complex those partnership agreements tend to be. Few industry folks understand that better than David Craig, the man perhaps best known as the lead visionary and developer behind the 2,200-acre Craig Ranch master-planned community in McKinney. His company, Craig International, and its partners — hospitality magnate Dave Johnson, the Choctaw Nation and Nagesh Kamarsu’s N9 Capital — recently unveiled plans for Preston Harbor. The 3,100-acre development will be located along Lake Texoma in Denison, some 75 miles north of Dallas.

Preliminary plans for Preston Harbor call for up to 10,000 residential units, most of which will be single-family homes, in addition to retail, restaurant and hospitality uses. Craig has partnered with the former CEO and co-founder of Plano-based Aimbridge Hospitality for the $100-plus million resort hotel, which will be operated under the Margaritaville brand. Preston Harbor features approximately nine miles of unspoiled  shoreline along the lake, which Craig says is an unprecedented amenity in and of itself, and the development team has also announced plans for a marina with a significant number of slips.  

While the specific uses behind the $6 billion project were only recently made public, preliminary, behind-the-scenes work for Preston Harbor — much of which has been centered on infrastructure development — has been going on for years. Craig is quick to credit his partners, individuals and municipal alike, for those successes.

“The City of Denison has been a wonderful partner, committing to general obligation bonds to the tune of $80 million,” says Craig with regard to offsite infrastructure. “It was a strategic decision on the City of Denison’s part, and not just for Preston Harbor. If you look at Denison, starting at U.S. [Highway] 75 and going up [FM] 84 to Preston Harbor and the lake — all that land in between had no significant water or sewer, which is why no major development has occurred on the west side of Denison.”

“They’ve now spent $22 million on water and sewer lines; we have water that’s established for the first 500 to 700 single-family homes, and the second phase is underway to give us all the water we need,” Craig continues. “Sewer bids for Phase I are in to the city and are starting in June, and we’ll have full sewerage services completed by the end of the first quarter of 2026. That will open up the whole west side of Denison with sewer and enough water to serve future developments in between [U.S.] 75 and Preston Harbor — about 20,000 acres to be developed in addition to the 3,100 acres of Preston Harbor.”

If infrastructure development represents a middle phase of development, then land assemblage marks an early one. On that front, Craig cites the hard work of his late friend and previous owner, George Schuler, as instrumental in bringing together the various parcels for Preston Harbor. 

“Before he passed in April 2023, George spent more than 20 years assembling the land,” Craig recalls. “He went into escrow with me, knowing I would follow his vision, after doing the heavy lifting for a project of this size and magnitude. He set up the municipal utility districts (MUDs), tax increment reinvestment zones (TIRZs) and zoning — which we’ve since modified — as well as an agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers. From that point, we just had to update everything, including entitlements, which is now complete.” (see page 20 for more on the acronyms)

South of Denison in Celina, a project of almost equal acreage to Preston Harbor is also taking shape. 

Legacy Hills is a 3,200-acre development by Centurion American Development Group, the firm that is also leading the $1 billion redevelopment of the nearby Collin Creek Mall into a mixed-use community. Legacy Hills calls for about 11,000 residential units — 7,000 single-family homes and 4,000 apartments — in addition to 100 acres of commercial development and two schools for the Celina Independent School District. Preliminary site and infrastructural work for the first phase began in May 2022. 

Brock Babb, the project manager on Legacy Hills, says that the development is proceeding ahead of schedule, despite the complexities of working with numerous homebuilders.

“There are really 28 projects within one, and we have city acceptance on four of those projects, while the other 20 or so are in the final stages,” Babb says. “Our infrastructure work is about 80 percent done. The pods of multiple homebuilders, including Beazer Homes and Del Webb, are city-accepted and done, so we should have about 2,000 lots completed and homes on the ground by the end of the year.”

Babb cites the reputation and connections of Centurion CEO Mehrdad Moayedi as critical to meeting the challenges that come with bringing such a large and complex project to life. This holds true with regard to collaboration between the public and private sectors and in terms of the master developer’s work with homebuilders. 

“With projects like this, it all starts with relationships and delivering on the promises we make to cities,” Babb says. “And in that respect, it’s the relationships that Mehrdad has — he’s probably dealt with 90 percent of the people in the industry and has a great reputation with cities and major homebuilders. Those relationships allow us to plan for the future.”

Babb says that on the commercial front, Centurion has sold one of its pods to Squeaky Realty, which has since completed its own infrastructural work and sold a portion of the land to grocer H-E-B and another tract to a multifamily developer. Babb says the goal is to have some construction activity on the multifamily component underway within the next 12 to 14 months.

In his capacities as both vice president at Centurion American and the former mayor of Celina, Sean Terry has had a firsthand view of the massive amount of infrastructural work that has gone into Legacy Hills. Specifically, working in both the private and public sectors has reinforced his appreciation for how important it is for both sides to truly collaborate.

“The best city leaders in this area understand that growth is going to happen whether you work with the developers or not, so [by working with them] you have the opportunity to create quality growth,” he says. 

“Some areas don’t have the power and sewer and water needed to support growth, and it’s the developers that deliver those resources,” he continues. “And sometimes the issue isn’t that the utilities like water aren’t available, but that the lines aren’t sized correctly, for example. So you have to have developers with the upfront money to put in those new lines and drill the necessary wells.”

One of the many issues that makes real estate development such challenging work is that to some degree, it requires foresight and an ability to predict demand. Terry says that many developers in North Texas possess that quality, and the proof of their prescience lies in the infrastructural work that’s already been conducted ahead of the homes and commercial buildings being approved. And even if that actual infrastructure isn’t there yet in some cases, the applications and permits are. 

“Once developers saw the growth in Frisco, they went north as far as they could and started preparing,” he says. “Some of those areas don’t have water and sewer in place, but what is in place are things like discharge permits to build package plants. If you’ve bought land, gotten it entitled, done your engineering and due diligence studies, you’re still at least two or three years away from breaking ground. But if you’ve got discharge permits and sewer and water lines in place, you’re 12 to 18 months away.” 

Multiple sources interviewed for this story cited regional manufacturing activity in the all-important semiconductor field as crucial to creating the jobs that are fueling demand for housing. Texas Instruments’ (TI) expansion of its existing facility and Taiwanese company GlobalWafers’ new facility — both of which are located in Sherman — represent thousands of new job creations and billions of dollars in capital investment for the region.

“Sherman is going crazy with TI and the wafer company, and they’re meeting in the middle as Sherman is moving south and Frisco is moving north,” says Terry. 

“The fabrication and manufacturing you have moving to Sherman has become a tremendous economic engine as well,” adds Barry Hand, principal in the Dallas office of Gensler. “You’re seeing some real wealth generated in Sherman, then you step your way down 75, and you see people looking for development opportunities.”

Acronyms Galore

Seasoned developers are accustomed to getting creative in response to the litany of obstacles and setbacks that can and do occur over the lifespan of a project, particularly one that encompasses hundreds of acres and multiple distinct uses. 

But municipalities also have some tricks in terms of incentivizing developers to perform these crucial upfront tasks, which frequently revolve around infrastructure, to ultimately deliver the housing or commercial space their communities need. 

In Texas, MUDs (municipal utility districts) are a key bureaucratic structure for financing the development of water and sewerage infrastructure, including treatments plants and storm drainage facilities. According to Texas Real Estate Source (TRES), a resource and advisory publication for prospective homebuyers and sellers, MUDs are usually created when developments are targeting areas of growth that fall outside the jurisdiction of a city’s public services departments. 

On a different point of the spectrum are PIDs (public improvement districts), which also cover water and sewerage infrastructure development in addition to that of roads and public recreational areas like parks. PIDs are not to be confused with PUDs, (planned unit development), which are special zoning designations that are granted to property owners to allow for more flexible and diverse uses of land. 

Per TRES, PIDs always have homeowners associations (HOAs), but not all HOAs are part of PUDs. And while HOAs are managed by individuals and are mostly responsible for small-scale cosmetic work, PIDs are controlled by municipalities.

“What happens is, you buy your lot in a development and you get an assessment of what it costs,” explains Terry. “That money doesn’t change over 20 or 30 years; you can pay it up front or put it in your mortgage, and by selling PIDs, the cost of the lot comes down. So with a PID development versus a non-PID development, a lot of times you can get that same house cheaper because the city didn’t have to raise taxes for the infrastructure and you’re paying as you go for the person who wants to live there.”

In other states, PUD stands for “public utility district,” which is most similar to a MUD in Texas. According to TRES, MUDs and PIDs are both viable structures under the Texas code for collecting taxes to finance these projects. Taxpayer dollars collected through these structures are also used to operate and maintain the facilities over their useful lives.

Confusing as all these acronyms may be, the bottom line is that these structures exist to formally channel taxpayer reimbursement dollars into infrastructural projects that would otherwise not be financially viable without upfront money from the private sector. 

A Retrospective Look

At least within the current real estate cycle, the crowning developments that originally put North Texas on the national radar as a major growth hub were Legacy West in Plano and The Star in Frisco. 

The former established a major locus for corporate headquarters location and regional consolidation via the likes of J.C. Penney, FedEx, Liberty Mutual and Toyota Motor Corp. The latter transplanted the most revered and popular institution in the state — the Dallas Cowboys — into this untapped area. 

“When Legacy West opened, it was somewhat surrounded by development, like The Domain was in Austin — a hole in the donut surrounded by housing,” says Hand. “The area has matured enough now with the housing and income in Prosper, Frisco and Plano to support significant mixed-use development.”

Since then, the Plano-Frisco-McKinney area has continued to explode with mixed-use product, starting with the PGA of America’s 2018 announcement to relocate and develop a 600-acre headquarters campus in Frisco. The project’s initial investment in the Frisco area exceeded $500 million and immediately spurred projects of similar size and scope, including The Link, a 240-acre development by Dallas-based Stillwater Capital.

A couple of years later, a development partnership led by Hunt Realty Investments and Karahan Cos. announced Fields West, a mixed-use development that spans more than 2,000 acres. The name pays homage to the family whose estate previously owned the land. 

At the initial announcement in 2022, plans for the 160-acre Fields West were left somewhat flexible but purported to include thousands of apartments and millions of square feet of commercial space. Gensler is leading the design of Fields West, and Hand provides some updates on the project.

“Our team is currently producing design and construction documents for the central mixed-use core of Fields West, which is approximately 50 acres of open-air mixed-use on a lifestyle street,” he notes. “The developers plan to start construction on that element this year and are moving dirt as we speak, with plans to open in 2026.”

Hand sees major growth potential to the north of Frisco but concedes that some infrastructural challenges have yet to be resolved.

“In greener, northern markets, you’re going to run into challenges with zoning for necessary densities and possibly infrastructure for sewer and water,” he says. “Water isn’t as challenging to supply for some developments, but calculating storm and sanitary sewerage [costs] and time to install for some of these projects can be a sobering conversation with city engineers. So that’s something to look at early.”

Gensler is also leading the design of Prosper Arts District, a $300 million mixed-use project that will be located about 40 miles north of Dallas on a 35-acre site at the northwest corner of Dallas North Tollway and Prosper Trail. The Town of Prosper approved the necessary zoning measures for the project in mid-June. Preliminary plans call for 515 multifamily units, three hotels and a retail village centered around a water feature display, to be developed in four phases. Phase I, which will include the development of core infrastructure, a sports-themed hotel, retail space and a parking garage, is set to begin later this year and to be complete in 2026

Smaller, Not Small

The most recent iteration of the mixed-use fervor to hit Frisco is Firefly Park, a 217-acre project by Wilks Development. The site is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 380 and the Dallas North Tollway, an area that Kyle Wilks, CEO of Firefly Park master developer Wilks Development, refers to as the “gateway” to the PGA of America campus. 

Preliminary plans for Firefly Park call for as much as 3 million square feet of Class A office space; 400,000 square feet of upscale retail, dining and entertainment space; 1,200 hotel rooms; 230 townhomes; and 1,970 mid- and high-rise residential units. Firefly Park will also feature a 45-acre park with multiple lakes, hiking trails, public art installations and family-friendly amenities. 

The park represents the component that Wilks believes truly distinguishes his project from others of its ilk. 

“The size of the park and the urban edge that we’re bringing is really the soul and golden thread of our project,” he says. “It’s highly amenitized and proximate to nature, like Klyde Warren Park [in Uptown Dallas]. We also have a vibrant, nine-block street full of retail and restaurants and bars that’s very high-energy and is sort of the heartbeat.”

In terms of infrastructural development, Wilks Development has a fairly straightforward partnership agreement with the Frisco Economic Development Corp. Under the terms of the deal, the company will be reimbursed for work based on certain hurdles and incentives of the commercial component of Firefly Park. Wilks says the biggest issue thus far on the infrastructural front has involved stormwater. 

“Our site picks up a lot of stormwater from the north that drains down to Parvin Branch Creek,” he says. “So we’ve had to put it a lot of infrastructure to handle that — dealing with flood plains, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), wetlands and all the other things that go along with stormwater has been a big infrastructural challenge that we’ve been able to overcome.”

Several miles south of Firefly Park is Frisco Station, a mixed-use development that also spans more than 200 acres. The master developer of Frisco Station, Kansas City-based VanTrust Real Estate, recently unveiled plans for the next phase of the development, which originally launched in 2015.

Dubbed The Towers at Frisco Station, the next phase will consist of office, hotel, retail and restaurant uses that could total as much as 3 million square feet across five buildings. Entertainment concepts Pickle & Social and Fairway Social have already committed to the latest phase. Frisco Station currently features 700,000 square feet of Class A office space, 955 mid- and high-rise apartments, 450 hotel rooms and a
30-acre park and trail system.

Despite Frisco’s established penchant for large-scale mixed-use projects, Wilks believes that the runway for growth and for strong absorption and utilization of the commercial and residential components of Firefly Park is still there.

“It’s such a business-friendly environment in these North Texas cities, plus they have great school districts, which are big drivers of growth,” he says. “Then there’s the ‘Golden Highway’ that is Dallas North Tollway. You’re going to see growth throughout that corridor all the way to Oklahoma; it will take time, but it’s just going to keep going north because that’s where people want to be.”

With North Texas swelling with jobs and people, the landscapes, economies and general ways of life in the various municipalities throughout the region are facing a shift of seismic proportions. Fortunately for them, the real estate community is ready to assist. 

“You’re seeing transitions in cities as they go from small farming communities to mature suburbs with economic and employment centers,” adds Hand. “At the same time, the impact of mixed-use design is changing and has moved a bit toward the development of complete communities. Developments of 80 to 160 acres are big enough that we can begin to compose a completeness with different forms of residential and retail and employment. Getting all those pieces into these developments — that’s where we’re seeing a change in some of our work.”