The proposed 25.73-acre development is located southeast of the intersection of Parmer and Ranch Trails Court, west of The Ranch at Brushy Creek subdivision.
City leaders said the project will include many uses in one property—where residents can leave their homes in the morning, cycle or walk to work during the day, and shop or dine in the evening; and where travelers can stay at a hotel and walk to nearby offices.
Construction will begin in late 2015 and could finish by spring 2017.
Plans call for construction to start with new two-story shops and restaurants at the corner of Parmer and Ranch Trails as well as pedestrian walkways that will eventually join trails leading to existing businesses.
The project’s next phase will include a four-story hotel, two-story office buildings and four-story luxury apartments.
Planning the project
On Jan. 22, Cedar Park City Council gave final approval to rezone the Parmer site as a planned development, a use similar to the city’s mixed-use zoning that outlines specific allowed uses.
Place 1 Councilman Stephen Thomas said the project’s vision is new to Cedar Park.
“It’s probably because the city is maturing that we can support that type of mixed use,” he said.
City documents call for a development in which buildings share architectural elements, such as color tones, masonry, murals or tile. Business signs would include logos with styles that match the project aesthetic. City planners have a list of allowed uses, such as banks, churches, gift shops, medical offices and recreation facilities. Uses not included on the list cannot be built.
Visitors will find parking lots in front of offices and shops, but entrances to the development would be limited to encourage parking and walking. Plans do not call for parking garages, but garages could be built if they match the project’s appearance.
Three separate developers are working on the project, and each will manage a different use, said Michele Haussmann, principal of the developers’ consultant, Land Use Solutions.
Capital City Partners will develop the Parmer project’s restaurants and shops. Riverside Resources will build the project’s hotel and offices. The NRP Group will build the project’s three residential complexes that include 500 luxury apartment units.
The developers have not released cost estimates for the project, Haussmann said. She also said developers do not plan to seek city incentives for the project.
“[City leaders] wanted a mixed-use type project, and it was very kind of the city and the neighborhoods to help us come to this result,” Haussmann said.
New neighbors
Haussmann said the developers and her consultant team began meeting in summer 2014 with nearby stakeholders, such as The Ranch at Brushy Creek Home Owners Association, the Breakaway Park Neighborhood Group and Leander ISD, which owns land east of the development site.
According to Cedar Park Planning and Zoning Commission records, Ranch at Brushy Creek HOA members told developers in July that they did not want large apartment buildings built on Ranch Trails. In response, developers offered four variations to their original apartment plans. HOA members said they favored an 8-foot-tall landscaped berm along Ranch Trails Court to keep the new apartments hidden from existing homes to the northeast, according to P & Z records.
HOA members said they were also concerned about morning traffic accumulating on Ranch Trails as well as pedestrian access to any future school on the Leander ISD land. Developers said they will conduct a traffic study and could build a fence to prevent pedestrians from accessing school property.
In a Dec. 10 email to City Council, Ståle H. Bjørdal, Ranch at Brushy Creek HOA president, said that after talks with developers the HOA supports the project.
City goals
In November, City Council approved an update of the city’s land-use plan, which outlines city leaders’ vision for growth. The plan designates much of the Parmer corridor’s east side for focused development, or planned areas. Amy Link, the city’s assistant director of development services, said those areas include uses not currently seen in Cedar Park—such as pedestrian walkways that connect individual buildings, each of which has a single use.
Mayor Matt Powell said the project’s developers proved they were also receptive to city leaders’ vision for more projects that align with the city’s goals for planned areas.
“What I challenged you to do … was to look for something different,” Powell said to Haussmann during City Council’s Jan. 8 meeting. “For going first on one of these planning areas, you set a very high bar.”
Some city leaders have previously advocated other projects that emphasize mixed uses. In 2007, City Council proposed that new city offices be the anchor for a mixed-use project in Town Center, located at the intersection of East Whitestone Boulevard and Toll 183A. But voters rejected a $19.57 million bond proposal that would have funded the project. Town Center later became a traditional development with larger stores, such as Costco and At Home.
Thomas said the Parmer site has a better chance to succeed than Town Center because it is smaller and is located closer to a heavily trafficked corridor. He said city approval was conditional on developers building shops, restaurants and walkways first and adding apartments later in 2017.
“[It] kind of moves the city out of that sleepy residential mode,” Thomas said.
