Dive Brief:

• Texas-based developer Hillwood is set to start work on the first 300-unit apartment community planned for the $1.5 billion, 242-acre mixed-use Frisco Station development in Dallas, The Dallas Morning News reported.

• The Station House apartments will open in mid-2018 and will be the first of nearly 2,400 units planned for Frisco Station.

• Hillwood is partnering with Van Trust Real Estate and the Rudman Partnership to deliver the new apartments, which will be designed by Dallas-based JHP Architecture/Urban Design

Dive Insight:

Work began in October on a 228,000-square-foot, seven-story office building for the development while hotel developer NewcrestImage is expected to break ground on a 600-room hotel project next year. Frisco Station is part of a group of developments under construction or planned for Frisco, TX, dubbed the “$5 billion mile.”

Frisco Station is among a number of mixed-use developments going up in Texas amid a residential construction boom as the state faces population growth driven largely by robust employment and lower living costs.

The pickup in larger-scale development is attracting interest from domestic and foreign companies, with Canadian developer Empire Continental Land kicking off work this month on a project near Houston that will include 540 homes.

Dallas-based developer Republic Property Group announced last week that it has added Toll Brothers to its list of homebuilders for the first phase of its 7,200-acre Walsh master planned community in Fort Worth, TX. The development is expected to provide 15,000 homes when completed, with 580 homes in the first phase.

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