With home sales in the Bridgeland master-planned community trending upward, development continues to move toward the Grand Parkway.

Bridgeland Creek Parkway—an east-west corridor connecting the community directly to the Grand Parkway from Fry Road—will open by January 2017, said Peter Houghton, vice president of master-planned communities with the Howard Hughes Corporation. Developers are also planning a 900-acre Bridgeland Town Center that will be on both sides of the Grand Parkway at the future intersection, he said.

With 2015 home sales in the community up 60 percent from 2014, developers have a different story to tell this year, Houghton said.

“We started with a low supply, and the housing market has been very resilient,” he said. “We had 51 home sales in April, which was the third-best month in our 10-year history. The opening of the Grand Parkway provided a shot in the arm.”

Although price points have fallen in the Greater Houston area due to the declining oil and gas market, the effect has not been nearly as pronounced in Bridgeland, Houghton said. Trendmaker Homes started selling 80-foot lots in the $550,000 range in May and sold five homes before they were even posted online.

“If the price is right, there are still a lot of buyers out there,” he said.

Construction will begin on Bridgeland Town Center within the next two to three years, Houghton said. With 5 million square feet of office space planned, it will play a major role in attaining the goal of having one job per home in Bridgeland—meaning roughly 19,000 jobs.

“Having jobs in the community will help keep people off the freeways as well,” Houghton said. “That’s the ultimate definition of a master-planned community. I can do everything here and work here as well.”

The town center will also feature a downtown area modeled after The Woodlands, which Howard Hughes also developed. Plans could potentially include multifamily, retail, hotel, entertainment, light industrial and warehouse development, Houghton said.

Developers are conducting a market study to determine the extent to which different kinds of commercial development would be viable, Houghton said.

Long-term plans include adding 17,000 single-family homes to the community over the next few decades. Howard Hughes Corporation is also looking into an active adult community in Bridgeland that could feature 800 single-family homes for people ages 55 and older, Houghton said.