Hillwood Moving Low and Slow With Master Plan in Lockhart

Plans for a new master-planned community in the barbecue capital of Texas have been wrapped, spritzed, and placed in the smoker.

A development plan for the Spencewood tract by Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Communities in Lockhart, Texas, home of the state’s oldest barbecue joint, Kruez Market, is chugging along slowly, according to the Austin Business Journal.

The majority of the planned community sits in Lockhart’s extraterritorial jurisdiction – an area generally under the control of the city but obligated to pay county taxes. Plans for the territory are moving slowly due to an additional land transaction that beefs up the acreage from 890 to 1,110 and several boxes that still need checking before shovels hit dirt.

The property is nestled between Dry Creek Road and U.S. Highway 183, just south of the Lockhart limits. The development has appeared on multiple Lockhart city council agendas, and a recent meeting included Hillwood asking for a fourth 90-day extension for their proposed municipal utility district.

The pace of the project might be relatively slow, but the bigger picture puts it firmly within a trend of developers targeting Austin’s suburbs.

The moves follow decades of steady population growth for Austin proper, which now counts about 1 million residents, with another 1.4 million or so in its suburbs.

Northwest of Austin, Liberty Hill is erupting. Hillwood is also building in Georgetown, which is also north of the city. Red Oak Development Group is in the process of planning for 2,500 homes in Lockhart, and the city is in the process of revamping its downtown and adding industrial and residential projects. Dallas-based RREAF Holdings moved forward with plans to bring thousands of residences to the area in 2023. Proto-Town, a recently-approved company town project for tech manufacturers, is set to be outfitted with a nuclear research reactor.

— Hunter Cooke