On Dec. 11, council members approved final votes to rezone the property to a planned-unit development district and establish a new tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, for the development.
Plans call for Wolf Lakes Village, which will be located at the northwest corner of I-35 and Hwy. 29, to include 2,400 housing units and 5.3 million square feet of development with offices, hotels, retailers and entertainment venues once built out over the course of the next several decades.
Iva Wolf McLachlan and Donald McLachlan of Wolf Lakes LP are the project’s owners and master developers. They anticipate Wolf Lakes Village will become a regional employment center, home to 4,500 workers and containing more than 725,000 square feet of corporate offices.
The European-style concept’s design will be pedestrian-friendly and include an amphitheater, an open-air pavilion, parks, trails and lakes, according to the developers.
Infrastructure reimbursements
Wolf Lakes Village will be the city’s fifth TIRZ to take advantage of tax increment financing, which allows cities to use property tax revenue to reimburse developers for building public infrastructure improvements such as roads, water lines, parks and trails.
The agreement will reimburse the cost of public infrastructure built by the developers using new property tax revenue generated by the expected increase in property value.
Using the property's 2018 taxable value of $4.6 million as a base, Georgetown’s reimbursement will be set at 70 percent of any new valuation with the city’s total reimbursements capped at $100 million over the course of 30 years.
Williamson County also will participate in the TIRZ with reimbursement set at 50 percent of new valuation and a cap of $30 million over the course of 20 years.
Wolf Lakes LP estimates the development’s property value will reach $1.7 billion by 2050.
Reimbursements would not start until at least 150,000 square feet of commercial development in Wolf Lakes Village receives building permits, according to the TIRZ project plan.
Public improvements planned at Wolf Lakes Village that would be eligible for reimbursement include parking structures and roadway enhancements as well as wastewater and utility-related construction.
An interlocal agreement between the city and county for the TIRZ will go to Williamson County Commissioners Court for approval Dec. 18. Georgetown council members approved the agreement Dec. 11.
The property will be built in multiple phases, according to planning documents. The first construction will build multifamily housing and is anticipated to start in 2019. Retail, commercial and office development will follow.
