Back in the mid-1980s, when I took a break from being on the reporting side of the news business and surrendered to what some of my colleagues referred to as "the dark side" (i.e., developing communication strategies for individuals, corporations, etc., during times of crises), one of my main clients was the Frito-Lay Corporation. The company, in one form or another, had its world headquarters in Dallas when it relocated there from Kansas City in the 1930s. At this time it was located in what was known as the Stemmons Business Corridor just west of the city-owned airport, Love Field.
I was shocked, therefore, when the company decided in the mid-‘80s to relocate to a completely isolated area of Collin County, in the northern reaches of what was then Plano’s ETJ, about halfway between McKinney on the east and Lewisville on the west, towns 25 miles from each other. If you go to Frito-Lay’s headquarters today, it’s difficult to imagine it was once "a completely isolated area." Known as the Legacy Park complex, it is now well within the city limits of Plano and is the location of the world headquarters of such companies as JC Penney, Dr Pepper/Snapple, Fed-Ex, PepsiCo, JP Morgan Chase, Pizza Hut, Toyota North America, Liberty Mutual Insurance Ericsson, Rent-A-Center and Boeing Global Services, in addition to Frito-Lay.
Basically the intersection of Legacy Drive and the extended Dallas North Tollway is the center of business activity in Plano, Texas, and that intersection is located about 20 miles northwest of downtown Plano, which has become little more than an intriguing curiosity piece. (The only thing that gives downtown Plano any relevance is a DART rail station located there, around which has sprung up a mixed-use development with commercial on the ground floor and residential on floors two through five. These residences are occupied by those who, for the most park, work to the south in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor or closer to downtown Dallas.)
I was thinking about that last night — along with the fates of other suburban downtown areas — during the City Council meeting when I saw steps being taken to radically shift Kyle’s commercial/residential hub. I don’t see Kohlers Crossing becoming another Legacy Drive, nor do I see FM1626 becoming another Dallas North Tollway, but I do see Kyle’s center of gravity shifting to the intersection of those two roadways. I see Kohlers Crossing — between Jack C. Hays Trail and I-35 becoming Kyle’s commercial center and the areas that will provide the housing for the workers that will soon be coming to this area will be of two types: Multi-family along two streets, Cromwell (which will be by the end of this year if it isn’t already the most densely populated residential street in Kyle) which flanks 1626 on the west and Kyle Crossing, a perfect place for more vertical mixed-use residential developments , which, of course, is located on 1626's east flank. The single family residential areas providing homes with the easiest access to this commercial hub will be located, for the most part, in what is now Kyle’s ETJ along and just off of Windy Hill Road.
I came to this realization after the council unanimously approved without debate but with much enthusiasm an economic development agreement with Majestic Realty Company to construct a business park consisting of two buildings totaling a half-million square feet on the southwest corner of Kohlers and Kyle Crossing. (The unanimous support was pleasing to see, but what was unexpected was the report the council received which said Majestic expects to be able to begin leasing spaces in these buildings by the end of this year).
The second was a much longer presentation from City Manager Scott Sellers concerning a development agreement for a 244-acre, 1,025-lot master-planned single-family residential community called the Trails at Windy Hill, located near the intersection of Windy Hill and Mathias Lane, just to the southeast of the Shadow Creek MUD. The development will be somewhat unusual in that it will consist of a number of different lot widths mixed together.
"Most often development will come forward with what I call a pod or an area of the same lot widths," Sellers said. "They’ll offer different models within those pods but typically you’ll have a section of 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s — those are widths of lot frontages. In this case, we negotiated something a little different, a little creative."
Basically, this development sheds the pod concept and, instead, will contain , according to Sellers, "a mixture on each street on different product types on different lot widths," with 10 percent of the lots being 60-foot widths, 51 percent as 50-foot widths and the remaining 39 percent as 40-foot widths, with each home being at least 1,200 square feet. ‘Streets are being reduced to 50 feet of right-of-way with 28 feet of pavement curb-to-curb which does trigger parking on one side only," Sellers said.
Because the development is currently located in Kyle’s ETJ, maintenance of the roads will be the responsibility of Hays County until Kyle annexes the area. The developer, Sellers said, is paying for a dedicated right-turn lane from Windy Hill to Mathias. Sellers said he expects most of the Trails at Windy Hill residents attempting to drive to Austin will go north on Windy Hill to 2001 and not take Windy Hill back to I-35. However, residents working at the Kohlers Crossing commercial hub will most likely use that latter route. Regardless, Sellers said, Hays County is working with the Texas Department of Transportation "to improve" Windy Hill Road.
Sellers noted that the Windy Hill bridge, located between Purple Mountain Avenue and Indian Paintbrush, was one of the hardest hit areas of Kyle during the Halloween floods of two years go. "As you recall, the road deck was lifted up off of that bridge structure and washed away," rendering Windy Hill Road impassible. The city and the county collectively made temporary fixes to the road to make it operational again, all the while realizing a more permanent fix was needed to make sure, in Sellers’ words, "we wouldn’t suffer the same fate we did in two prior events." The city manager said after working with FEMA for 18 months to secure funding for the permanent bridge repair/replacement, the federal agency told the city the project did not qualify for funds. The estimated cost for repair on that stretch of Windy Hill, Sellers said, is $3.8 million, with the Texas General Land Office being willing to pay for only $1.8 million of it.
"That left the city staff scratching our heads wondering where we were going to find another $2 million to finish the improvements to Windy Hill," Sellers said, adding time was a factor since the GLO’s offer of $1.8 million was only on the table for two years.
"Working with the developer on this agreement, they have pledged to cover that gap for the city," Sellers announced last night. The developer will make this happen by being incorporated into the Shadow Creek MUD which has its own wastewater package plant. (The city doesn’t offer water or wastewater services to this area as of yet.)
The question, of course, is what appeal does this area have to potential homeowners to the extent that developers are willing to negotiate such a deal to establish homes in this area. One answer, of course, is availability, but there are plenty of other unoccupied areas in and around Kyle, especially to the south. But none that offer as direct an access to what is about to become Kyle’s commercial hub.
But there’s more to it than that because the same question can be asked of that hub. And the answer to that is simply that cities grow, they expand, northward. Look at the Dallas-Fort Worth area where all the major commercial growth took place to the north in places like Richardson, Garland, Plano, Frisco, Allen, etc. Here in the Austin area, the growth of communities like Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville et al have been far more pronounced than in Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs. Why? Quite simply it’s because water flows to the south (the cowboys said it best: "Never drink downstream from the herd").
So all of this points to Kyle’s geographical center of gravity moving north from its current location near the intersection of Center and Front Street. I have been told by more than one source that federal officials now predict Kyle will top 100,000 in population within a quarter of a century, by the year 2040, to be exact. That’s two and a half times the current population. Expect the city to undergo that same type of transformation as was experienced by the communities of Collin County, and especially that area along Legacy Drive, during a less than 25-year period beginning in the mid-1980s. City government appears to already have outgrown the current City Hall and city leaders have already talked about developing a new government center located on Kohlers at or near the 1626 intersection.
What was it Bob Dylan wrote some 50 years ago? Oh yeah:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
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