Development on the 2,300-acre, mixed-use Whisper Valley and Indian Hills projects can move forward thanks to $40 million in municipal bond financing for infrastructure.
Together, the projects would add 3.75 million square feet of commercial space and about 8,600 housing units east of the city on the land owned by Taurus of Texas Holdings LP, The Statesman newspaper reported.
The financing deal, the Statesman said, ends a five-year stall over how to control development along Texas Route 130 without annexing the land and putting tax dollars into extending roads and utilities into the area and creating parks.
"The bonds are secured by the value of the raw land – not by the city – and are to be repaid with assessments on property owners in those developments, which carry a special designation: public improvement district, or PID," the newspaper explained.
“Traditional bank financing, which developers typically use, isn’t available for land development in the current economy,” Taurus managing partner Douglas Gilliland told GlobeSt.com.
For five years, the Statesman said, real estate attorneys Steve Metcalfe and Talley Williams have been working on the financing arrangement.
