Sellers projects Kyle’s population to grow by 120,000 by 2056

Today's Marketplace Extension ribbon cutting

City manager Scott Sellers, in sort of mini state-of-the city address today during the ceremonial opening of Marketplace Extension, projected that the city’s population will increase by 120,000 — essentially three times its current size — within the next 40 years.

Sellers’s address at the ribbon cutting at the first of the road projects bonded in 2013 to be completed was not scripted — at least Sellers wasn’t reading from a script or even using notes — but what he said should be of vital interest to most, if not all, city residents because he outlined the direction in which he foresees the city is heading.

By today’s standards, a growth of 120,000 people would make Kyle the 17^th most populous city in Texas, just behind Brownsville but significantly larger than such cities as Waco, Denton, Abilene, Beaumont, Odessa and Wichita Falls.

"It’s really a great sight to see so many people here for a road," Sellers began. "But this is so much more than just a road. This is symbolic of so many things that Kyle is doing right now that we are doing right. This is an artery. This truly is the downtown-to-uptown artery. The symbolism here is more than just a road — it is a road to somewhere. It is a road to prosperity.

"Kyle is growing so quickly, not just geographically as we have seen recently with our annexations. It’s growing the number of units, It’s growing in its prosperity, in its sales and property taxes. This really is a city that is on the rise. And we are all very privileged to be a part of it.

"Just to give you a perspective of what that growth looks like today, we have been working very hard with our local residential and commercial development partners. For those of you who have been reading the news lately, you’ll see that about three weeks ago, the City of Kyle was 20 square miles in geography, which is a good-sized city. Two weeks ago the city grew to 30 square miles in the largest annexation that we’ve ever conducted.

"That annexation didn’t happen just to grab additional land. It happened because there is development coming and that development, in large part, is already moving forward. Our City Council is approving development agreements and working on other property development negotiations to bring more residential-commercial development to the city.

"Right now we have in Kyle over 40,000 entitled residential/multi-family lots that we are anticipating to be constructed probably over the next 30 to 40 years. So it doesn’t come overnight. But just the fact that these lots are entitled, that’s really something. You think about what we look at just from a population perspective. We usually look at three to three-and-a-half people per unit, a little less for multi-family. But if you look at 40,000 potential units at three people per unit over the next 40 years, it gives you a pretty good idea of the growth that Kyle will see and is seeing.

"We are trending toward 1,000 building permits just this year. (Editor’s note: To put that in some kind of perspective, Abilene issued just a little more than half that number last year.) As we project into the future, we’re not abating off that number. We think 1,000 is a good, accurate number."

Those numbers, Sellers emphasized, just reflected residential building permits. On the commercial side of the equation, the city manager said "I know we are working very hard. We have a lot of things in the pipeline and a lot of things you’re seeing on the ground."

Sellers tied all that back to the Marketplace opening by stressing the amount of development that’s planned along that roadway. He said one developer is in the final stages of a project "that will bring 400 multi-family units that aren’t just the typical units. This is a live-work-play mixed use development right here along Marketplace, providing quick accessibility, walkability to the commercial area. A great place to call home with trails and other amenities that will be offered. This project is slated to occur pretty quickly within, I’d say, the next 12 months. There’s another multi-family project that we’ve already given approval to which is just north of here (directly across Marketplace from Kohls) along the same road. Those two projects would not have been made possible without this road development. Those are probably 600 units that we are seeing today because of this road.

"So what is a road?" Sellers rhetorically asked in conclusion. "It is symbolic of what’s happening in Kyle — the growth and the prosperity the city is seeing. And as we continue our road projects — we have five additional roads — and in the next two or three years we will see major marked improvements to those roads that will allow us to continue to bring the growth and prosperity that Kyle will see, not only today but for the next several decades if not 50 to 100 years plus."