A nearly 3,000-acre master-planned community — on land that was previously considered for a NASCAR racetrack — promises to be the first of several new developments to create an important district along state Highway 288.

It’s also the first master-planned community by W Land, a new division of Houston-based build-to-rent developer Wan Bridge.

W Land broke ground May 21 on Preservation Creek, a 2,962-acre community with an expected 5,500 homes at build-out, at FM 1462 just east of Highway 288 in Alvin.

First-phase homebuilders include Brightland Homes, Kendall Homes, The New Home Co., Smith Douglas Homes and Imagination by David Weekley Homes, which will be building on 40- to 60-foot lots. W Land expects to deliver the 786 first-phase lots by the end of the year, said Lisa Clark, who heads the division as senior consultant.

The single-family homes will range from about 1,400 to up to 3,500 square feet and sell from the lower $300,000s to the mid-$500,000s, Clark estimated.

About 100 of the homes in the first phase will be built for rent by Wan Bridge, she said. Overall, about 20% of the community’s homes are planned to be a mix of rental homes, including single-family, duplexes and townhomes.

The developer acquired the land in 2022, most of it from an entity that had previously envisioned creating a NASCAR racetrack complex on it. The original plan in 2002, the brainchild of the late Tom Floyd, included a tri-oval, 1.76-mile speedway, as well as a regional conference center, hotel and golf course, per Houston Business Journal reporting at the time.

Although a groundbreaking ceremony was held in April 2003, the project didn't attract enough investors and never materialized, the Houston Chronicle reported at the time.

Today, the area is ground zero for the city of Alvin’s Austin Bayou District, an economic initiative that envisions the residential and commercial development of 17,000 acres along Highway 288.

Alvin Mayor Gabe Adame compares the future district to Pearland Town Center at Highway 288 and Broadway Street and the Manvel Town Center under development at the intersection of highways 288 and 6.

“We've steadily been creeping west,” Alvin Mayor Gabe Adame said. “And here at (Highway) 288 and (FM) 1462 is where the real development is going to be.”

Preservation Creek will bring the first homes to the area. Also planned in the community are Angleton Independent School District sites, including three elementary schools.

More than 1,100 acres will be reserved for parks, trails, lakes, creeks and green space, including a 500-acre regional park on the community’s west side.

“The reason we picked (the name) Preservation Creek was, our vision for this property is to bring it back to its natural state, and we want to preserve that,” Clark said. “But we don't only want to preserve that. We want to preserve family life. We want to preserve community. We want to preserve the relationships that the kids will build here, and they'll go to school together from kindergarten on up.”

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W Land

Wan Bridge, founded by Ting Qiao in 2016, is one of the pioneers in build-to-rent community development in Texas. The company has built more than 1,500 rental homes across the Houston, Austin and Dallas areas since late 2021, the majority in Greater Houston.

It has a goal of building 12,500 homes in build-to-rent communities in the state by 2030 — down from its previous five-year goal, set in 2021, to build 30,000 rental homes. The readjustment was a response to economic uncertainty, high inflation and slow rent growth, which has spooked some investors, Qiao told the HBJ in March. Many of the homes are in Land Tejas’ master-planned communities but also in standalone developments.

Besides Preservation Creek, W Land is also working on the development of master-planned communities in Bastrop as well as Johnson County south of Fort Worth, Clark said. Both are still in the planning stages.

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