The Dirt

Huge Project Near Celina will be the Largest New Housing Community in Dallas’ North Suburbs

Huge Project Near Celina will be the Largest New Housing Community in Dallas' North Suburbs

Centurion American Development’s new Legacy Hills will have more than 10,000 homes and apartments.

A local developer that’s already the area’s biggest community builder has acquired a huge tract of land for what will be the largest new residential development in Dallas’ northern suburbs.

Centurion American Development Group purchased 3,200 acres on the northwest side of Celina for a new community that will have 7,000 homes.

The sprawling residential development, which will be called Legacy Hills, will have about 4 miles of frontage on the path of the Dallas North Tollway extension. Along with the single-family homes, Legacy Hills will have sites for 4,000 apartments and 100 acres of commercial and retail buildings. The property was purchased from an investment partnership that had owned the land for almost 40 years, said real estate broker Rex Glendenning, who negotiated the major sale.

“Rarely does an opportunity to acquire a several-thousand-acre, master-planned mixed-use development with over four miles of frontage along the Dallas North Tollway and only 20 minutes away from Legacy business park present itself,” said Glendenning, CEO of Rex Real Estate. “Mehrdad Moayedi has the vision to see how the new tollway access will help transform this property into a true world-class project.”

Legacy Hills will be the largest new development in Celina, which is already in the midst of a homebuilding boom.

“This will be a city within a city and transform Celina,” Glendenning said. “I believe this property may be the most beautiful development site I have had the opportunity to work on in my 40 years of brokerage.

“The property’s undulating hills combined with the beautiful tree cover along Little Elm Creek create a true sense of Hill Country while being only minutes away from Dallas.”

Legacy Hills will include an 18-hole championship golf course, a first for Celina. Plans for the new home community also call for a 27-acre sports park, walking trails and seven amenity centers to serve the residents. Land is being set aside for two schools and two fire stations.

“We’re planning for Legacy Hills to become the most sought-after address in Collin County,” Moayedi, CEO of Centurion American, said in a statement. “With an array of on-site amenities, a prime location and ample open space; this development will be a true lifestyle experience for future residents. “We’ve worked with the area’s top builders to ensure that Legacy Hills offers a diverse and impressive array of home sizes and home styles.”

Centurion American Development Group is already lining up homebuilders, including Ashton Woods, Beazer Homes, D.R. Horton, First Texas Homes, Lennar Homes, M/I Homes and Mattamy Homes.

“They’ll be cutting the home lots by late spring and summer of 2022,” Glendenning said. “You probably won’t have homes on the ground until the spring of ‘23.”

“There is a section at the southeastern corner that might come online in the fall of ‘22.”

He said the tollway service roads will be completed to the property by next summer. Glendenning brokered the big land sale with Charlie Adams and Chase Adams of the Stratford Group representing the seller, the Dynavest partnership.

Trez Capital is the funding partner with Centurion American for the development. Glendenning said the farm and ranch land that will become Legacy Hills was once known as Cow Mountain. “A ridge line runs across the property,” he said. “The marketability of the name Legacy Hills is probably a little better than Cow Mountain, what the old timers called it.”

The big land sale near Celina is just the latest in a series of major property purchases Rex Real Estate has recently handled for Centurion American Development.

The developer just acquired more than 1,100 acres in Kaufman County near Terrell for a 4,000-home residential project. And in October, Glendenning arranged a sale of another tract for 850 houses on the west side of Celina on FM428.

The suburban Dallas land rush has intensified in the last year with the huge demand for new homes. Starts of single-family homes in North Texas are up by more than 40% so far this year. And builders are shopping for new neighborhood construction sites.


Source: The Dallas Morning News - Steve Brown