Wolff Companies buys up extra land for flood protection

Worff Companies is shoring up flood detention for its rural South Texas development.

The longtime Houston developer just bought 22.7 acres from McCaig Family Limited Partnership, the Houston Business Journal reports.

The tract is adjacent to the company’s Beacon Hill development on U.S. Highway 290 just outside Waller, northwest of Houston, bringing the master-planned community’s total area to 587 acres. The original plot was also purchased from a family-owned entity. The Schild family sold the initial 521-acre tract for somewhere between $15 million and $20 million.

Almost 11 acres of the new tract will be available for future commercial development, Wolff told HBJ, but the rest will be used for drainage and flood detention. According to Waller County’s 2017 survey, the site of the planned development is about 7 to 8 miles from a high-risk flood zone.

“We’re developing Beacon Hill to 500-year floodplain standards,” said David Wolff, chairman and president of Wolff Cos. “And we’re being very conservative, making sure there’s plenty of detention, and detention requires land.”

In 2020 Wolff sold 270 acres of Beacon Hill to Houston-based Long Lake for the development of a residential community with homes in the mid-$200,000s to the low $500,000s. Last Summer, Long Lake and its development arm, Woodmere Development announced the opening of two model homes and a sales office in the residential section of Beacon Hill. As of right now, 60 of the planned 867 homes are completed.

Wolff said he expects basic site work on the newly added tract, which is overgrown with brush, to begin in the next three to four months to “clean it up and make it a good deal more attractive” for potential retail development.

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— Maddy Sperling