Dive Brief:

• Developers are starting construction on the next phase of the $1.5 billion Frisco Station project in Frisco, TX, which includes two hotels with a total of 300 rooms, according to the Dallas Morning News.
• NewcrestImage is building two Marriott properties — an AC Hotel and a Residence Inn — in the 242-acre development. The company also has plans for an additional hotel in a future phase of the project, a Canopy by Hilton.
• NewcrestImage calls this latest addition to Frisco Station a "lifestyle hotel campus" and said the project will be adjacent to the development's retail and entertainment center.

Dive Insight:

Frisco Station construction continues to ramp up. In October of last year, crews began work on the largest project in the development, a 228,000-square-foot, seven-story office building, which is across the street from the Dallas Cowboys' mixed-use development. The Cowboys maintain their headquarters and training facilities there as well.

Construction started on the development's first residential section, a 300-unit apartment complex, in December of last year. This is the first phase of an estimated 2,400 residential units in total for the project.

In addition to the 650 hotel rooms that NewcrestImage is building and the 2,4000 homes under construction, when completely built out, Frisco Station will also include a 40-acre medical complex and 300,000 square feet of retail, dining and entertainment space — all part of the Frisco, TX, "$5 billion mile" of mixed-use projects.

NewcrestImage is also building an AC Hotel in Oklahoma City. The AC Hotel Bricktown is the first modular hotel in the state and was manufactured offsite by Boise, ID, company Guerdon Modular Buildings. The 142-room, five-story structure is comprised of 81 modules, which top off a traditionally built ground floor. 

While the focus has been primarily on construction activity in Frisco, it doesn’t exist in a bubble. Other North Texas developments like the $1 billion Gates of Prosper in Prosper, TX, are also driving growth. One of the project's partners is Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, and he and Lincoln Property broke ground on a 93-acre shopping center there at the end of 2015, all part of a 20-year plan for 500 acres of retail, offices, apartments and single-family homes.