Growth surges into new decade

December 31, 2019

Construction on the rise in east Harris County, Chambers County

The decade of the 2010s was the decade when Houston discovered the east side. For good or ill—or both—the Baytown area will never be the same.

It was just at the beginning of the decade, in 2011, that the final main lanes on the Sam Houston Tollway opened, providing a direct connection with no traffic lights from Highway 90 to Highway 59 and completing Houston’s second loop and ushering in a construction boom.

As the decade ended, Houston’s third loop is extending to the east, cutting a path through Baytown, Mont Belvieu and Dayton. Once again, massive new residential communities follow improved access, turning pastureland into subdivisions.

Growth within Baytown has followed two paths: expansion—mainly to the north—and infill, as gaps left by earlier development get filled in.

In August of 2010, the Baytown/West Chambers County Economic Development Foundation presented a study to the Baytown City Council that was part of a study to encourage high-end housing in the city.

“We’re having a really big fight over the perception of our city,” then-Mayor Stephen DonCarlos said at the time. “We’ve got to get people past the point where they accept mediocrity.”

Suggestions listed in the study included improvements in restaurants, entertainment and performing arts, urban redevelopment of older neighborhoods, revitalizing downtown and the mall, reducing crime rate and improving the selection of better housing—all areas that have shown progress in the past decade to varying degrees.

An earlier article in 2010 quoted EDF Associate Director B.J. Simon as listing some of the businesses Baytown was seeking to locate here, such as Cheddars, Buffalo Wild Wings, Jason’s Deli, H-E-B and Aldi, all of which are now established parts of the community.

As those businesses were being recruited, city officials often spoke in terms of “rooftops,” or the total number of housing units, as a key figure retailers look for before they commit to a location. By that measure, the latter half of the decade especially has seen substantial growth in both single-family and multi-family housing.

Baytown

• Friendswood Development, known for its master-planned communities, is building four new neighborhoods near Garth Road and Wallisville Road. Planned for eventually holding 1,400 homes and a new elementary school, the development is collectively known as Baytown Crossings.

The four are named for four prominent families from Baytown’s early days: Sterling Crossing, Wooster Crossing, Ashbel Crossing and Burnet Crossing.

• Goose Creek Landing, west of Garth Road on Wallisville, is planned for about 400 single-family homes. In August 2016, the Houston Business Journal listed it as the Houston area’s fastest-selling residential subdivision.

• Southwinds, a development along Kilgore Parkway, will add about 1,000 housing units in Baytown’s Extraterritorial Jurisdiction, consisting of about 450 single-family homes and two apartment complexes. The master-planned community will also have commercial areas and property set aside for a future elementary school.

• In December of 2018, the city approved two new Municipal Utility Districts in Chambers County to facilitate planned subdivisions: one of about 450 homes near the Grand Parkway and FM 565 and another near Grand Parkway and Interstate 10.

• On the south end of town, Wells Holdings is developing Trinity Oaks. The first few homes are already built for a community that is planned to eventually have about 380 homes in addition to retail and multi-family development along the Grand Parkway and Tri City Beach Road, partially on the old Evergreen golf course.

• Goose Creek Reserve is an infill subdivision, adding a neighborhood on the site of the former Goose Creek Golf Course.

• Lynnwood and other neighborhoods have added homes along Highway 146, which is also home to the Chambers Town Center development.

Mont Belvieu

Mont Belvieu has also seen explosive growth in the last decade, and it looks to be just starting.

• On the retail front, the big story is the H-E-B anchored shopping area at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Eagle Drive. The completely rebuilt Eagle Drive is also home to several other new ventures, including an Enterprise Products office building and a new city park—and continued growth of the school complex.

• The development of Langston Drive as a cross-city street connecting Highway 146 and Eagle Drive, parallel to Interstate 10, is opening up more land for housing development.

Dayton

The largest single development announced, though, is River Ranch, a 7,000-acre project of Baytown developer Eddie Gray near Dayton. The first phase will provide for more than 1,000 homes and a tract set aside for a new elementary school.