Leander City Council Approves 2,000-acre Development

By Camelia Bulea, Associate Editor

The first day of May marked the approval of a 2,000-acre development that will be built in Leander over the next decade. The upscale development will include 3,200 residential homes and apartments, retail space, park land and three schools.

The City Council approved zoning the property and a concept plan that allows Lookout Group LP to develop the area as Crystal Falls West. Lookout Partners LP, which has offices in Houston and Leander, has spent the last decade quietly buying 20 tracts of land for its master-planned Crystal Falls project—one of the largest master-planned attempts in Central Texas, according to Austin Business Journal.

According to The Statesman, the city has recently annexed around 1,800 acres of Travis County land and approved a plan for five phases, as follows:

• The first phase — 430 acres — will feature 59 acres for an elementary school and a middle school, 30 acres of commercial space, 18 acres of multifamily space and 50 acres of park land. Construction work is planned for 2014 and 2015.
• The second phase — 491 acres extending north and west from the first development phase — will predominantly be residential space, while 30 acres will be parkland. This phase is scheduled for 2016 and 2017.
• The third phase — about 364 acres — will feature 18 acres for another elementary school, another 3.5 acres of commercial space and more than 64 acres of park land.
• The fourth phase – 479 acres — will crop up throughout 2020 and 2021 and feature more housing and about 24 acres of park space.
• The fifth phase — 354 acres — will include nearly 12 acres of commercial space and more residential space, according to the plan. It will be running through 2023.

The Statesman adds that the city’s current assessed property value is about $1.7 billion and that the new development could bump it to $2.9 billion, nearly doubling the property tax base.

Photo credits: www.mycrystalfalls.com

For more news from Austin, click here.