Pfishin' for business

A Pflugerville development that's been in the works since 2004 has added more commercial acreage, and now has 384 acres set aside to attract big businesses.

The planned project has already caught the attention of one of Round Rock's largest employers, which is considering a move there.

The development, comprised of three tracts named Wildflower, Wildflower Commercial and Wildflower North, was at one point a largely residential project called Capitolio Tejas with two main pieces named Cactus and Wildflower. Both Cactus and Wildflower were slated for single-family and some multifamily homes in 2004 when Tejas Viejo Land Co. President Wayne "Sandy" Rea put the land -- 1,600 acres total -- under contract. The original Cactus piece, originally planned to hold about 50 acres of commercial development, will now be almost entirely taken up by commercial tenants. Pflugerville's city council gave final approval to the conversion two weeks ago.

While there's been no activity on the ground, the project has seen some significant change since 2004. Rea is no longer the project's developer, and original investors Clark Wilson and Austin-based Athena Equity have been replaced by Doug Kadison, Charlie Nichols and the project's current developer, John Lloyd, says Charles Simon, director of the Pflugerville Community Development Corp.

Lloyd, an Austin-based developer, has helped increase the commercial portion. The project's total acreage has also expanded to approximately 2,284 acres. The development will likely hold 5,000 single-family and multifamily units, Lloyd says.

The commercial piece is at the northeast corner of Pecan Street and State Highway 130. The total project, including the residential portion, will contain five municipal utility districts in order to bring utilities to the former farmland.

Lloyd says with SH 130 bordering part of the development, it made sense to expand the commercial portion. While he says he can't name the exact cost of the project, Lloyd says it will likely be more than $100 million by the time it's built out -- the commercial portion will be built out over five to six years -- and could contain more than 1 million square feet of commercial space.

The commercial space will be a mixture of light industrial, office space, warehouse and retail, Lloyd says. Lloyd says he has a letter of intent from Sysco Food Services of Austin LP to take space in the development, which could bring up to 350 jobs to Pflugerville, but says Sysco is still evaluating other options.

Sysco Food Services of Austin President Bill Loftin says the company is looking for land to build a new distribution center, which currently employs 335 and could grow to 500 employees. But Loftin declines to say where Sysco is looking or what location it may land on. Sysco is currently on Chisholm Trail in Round Rock.

Simon says the city has been talking to other large-scale users that could potentially bring hundreds of employees into the city.

"This would be the kind of thing that would put Pflugerville in the game," Carlton Schwab, president of the Texas Economic Development Council, says of the city's chance to score a large employer. "It indicates that they're trying to do real economic development ... that would be good for Pflugerville, and kind of a statement that they've got some land they could do something with -- something unlike anything they've done yet."

In August Verde Corporate Realty Services announced plans for a more than 1 million-square-foot industrial park in Pflugerville called Verde Springbrook Corporate Center. That center will hold Span International's Austin-area operations.

source: bizjournals.com