Chesmar CEO to build huge resi community in Texas City

Chesmar Home CEO Don Klein is planning a 756-home community in Texas City.

Klein’s Affinity Development Co. secured local approval for what will be Beacon Point at Lago Mar last week. However, development manager Ron Brooks tells the Houston Business Journal that there’s still a stretch of bureaucratic hurdles to jump before construction can start. He hopes to be able to start construction on the first three sections in April or May, after getting a preliminary plat approval, and to start building homes by next fall.

Klein’s main company, Chesmar Homes, is attached to the project. The prolific Texas homebuilder plans to build 756 one- and two-story single-family homes on 40- to 70-foot lots, priced from the $300,000s to the high $500,000s. It’s one of the first moves by Chesmar since being acquired by Japanese home builder Sekisui House for $514 million this past summer.

Beacon Point at Lago Mar (Quiddity Engineering)

The relatively rural community of Texas City is south of Houston, between League City and Galveston. The newly approved mixed-use project from Klein and company would go up across the street from the Tanger Outlet Mall.

Read more

Texas

Shea Homes leads buildout of 740-acre Houston project

New York

Homebuilder sentiment takes historic hit

The planned community would also be down the road from the 12-acre lagoon at Lago Mar, Land Tejas’ master-planned community in Texas City. While Klein’s plans for Beacon Point at Lago Mar don’t include a crystal lagoon, it does feature a 3.3-acre recreational area with parks and a pool.

Lago Mar, approved back in 2019, was such a big deal for Texas City that it formed the Lago Mar tax increment reinvestment zone as well as Galveston County’s municipal utility district No. 57, which would serve Beacon Point.

“All of those things that they had set up are still in place, which is a good thing,” Klein said. “It makes getting into the development phase of the project a little bit easier.”

Affinity purchased the 287 acres in October 2021 from an entity called Texas City 490 Ltd. The firm has already cleared the site and started working on the more than 90 acres of detention area, Brooks says. However, to be clear, Beacon Point at Lago Mar is a separate project. Texas City rejected Affinity’s preferred name, Lago Clara because the city wanted the Lago Mar name to be part of it.

— Maddy Sperling