Everything’s Bigger in Texas, Including Placemaking

When Texas comes to mind, so do things like rodeos, cowboy boots, and comforting Tex-Mex cuisine. Another area where Texas really shines – something that comes as a pleasant surprise to its visitors – is in its forward-thinking urban placemaking projects. Throughout the state, retail spaces, residential developments, public spaces, and infrastructure are being reimagined to offer much more than the traditional and expected.

In the process, they’re giving local economies an often-needed boost.

The common denominator is connectivity – something reflected in new communities and emotional bonds between people and places. Often, it also involves geographical connectivity, once bridges, roadways, and transit stations become more than purely functional. It’s strategic and design-driven placemaking – and it’s transforming Texas’s cities.

Throughout Texas, retail spaces, residential developments, public spaces, and infrastructure are being reimagined to offer much more than the traditional and expected.

Retail that Retains People

The goal of retail placemaking is to draw people to specific neighbourhoods or developments – and get them to stay a while. If executed properly, this can have enormous financial benefits for the local economy. It goes without saying that it also enriches the lives of both residents and visitors. Texas features some stand-out examples of retail placemaking that have revitalized and redefined entire neighbourhoods. By design, these spots are multifaceted and engaging.

Stand-out examples of retail placemaking that have revitalized and redefined entire neighbourhoods.

In San Antonio, the revival of the city’s Historic Pearl district has breathed new life into its central brewery (which originally stopped operations in 2001) and the entire neighbourhood, which sits along the San Antonio River. The initiative was a collaboration between local developers Silver Ventures, who acquired the property in 2001, and the City of Antonio. Now, the Pearl Brewery is part of a self-sufficient, mixed-use, and curb-free village that has become a thriving destination. In fact, it’s one of the top destinations in the city.

Key programming elements include a public farmers’ market, shops, restaurants, a food hall, public parks, plazas, an award-winning boutique hotel, food trucks, the Culinary Institute of America campus, and a riverside amphitheatre (plus more).

The redevelopment also linked the brewery site to the extremely popular San Antonio River Walk and to the surrounding community. Widely celebrated, Pearl District received the Global Award for Excellence by the Urban Land Institute and is a shining example of the win-win situation that can happen when effective public-private partnerships are formed. Now, the neighbourhood receives 30,000-plus weekly visitors, including 8,000 farmers' market shoppers.

More than Places to Call Home

Today’s most celebrated urban condo developments are more than just places to call home; they’re mixed-use, with a strong placemaking retail core. Developer-led placemaking attracts people to places for mixed reasons – from morning coffees and yoga classes, to midday dental appointments and evening nightcaps – resulting in longer stays and steady flows of traffic throughout the day.

Communities like Firefly Park and Watters Creek Village can provide a notable ROI for property developers, property owners, local businesses, and municipalities.

In the fast-growing city of Frisco (located north of Dallas), the talk of the town is the upcoming Firefly Park project by Wilks Development LLC. The innovative retail and entertainment destination will become an urban village, complete with 45 acres of natural park. “Firefly Park is not just a place, but an experience,” reads the website. It will deliver on this promise with everything from a sleek Dream Hotel, lavish lock-and-leave townhomes, and mid and high-rise residential buildings, to class A office buildings, retail, restaurants, a 3000-guest amphitheatre, playgrounds, trails, an event chapel, and a community event lawn.

Firefly Park’s retail, residential, and commercial offerings are deliberately designed to connect people, nature, and the environment. The multibillion-dollar project has been nearly a decade in the works planning-wise, with construction beginning earlier this year. It's just one of the buzzed-about developments that’s redefining Frisco, increasing both its size and visitor appeal.

An example of this currently happening is the 2022-built Watters Creek Village in Allen, Texas, which transformed farmland into a bustling, resort-style shopping and entertainment destination. Surrounded by new residential and office buildings and set on 52 acres of lush landscaping, the centre of the mixed-use community features a restaurant and shop-packed retail village, with talking points like a running creek, massive fire pit, and free umbrellas on rainy days. Interactive programming attracts both residents and visitors and includes things like art and music festivals, beer crawls, outdoor yoga, and more.

If executed properly, interactive mixed-use communities like Firefly Park and Watters Creek Village will provide a notable return on investment (ROI) for property developers, property owners, local businesses, and municipalities.

Art-filled Public Infrastructure

Texas is a leader in transforming urban infrastructure to take it above and beyond being purely functional. Things like transit stations, bridges, and pathways are becoming far more value-added and meaningful than purely a means of getting from A to B.

El Paso’s Downtown Pathways not only formed new convenient paths of connectivity between two of the city’s neighbourhoods, it continues to give those who walk its path something to talk about, thanks to its vibrant art. Pre-2015, the Union Plaza District and the Downtown Arts District were awkwardly separated by a convention centre and parking lot. This meant that pedestrians had to take a 15 to 20-minute detour, walking around the convention centre, to get between the two neighbourhoods.

The art-filled Downtown Pathways project has become a celebrated destination as well as a passageway.

With the support of the National Education Association (NEA), the City of El Paso then decided to convert the parking lot into a pedestrian mall to facilitate safe connectivity. The result was a pedestrian pathway that quickly became a destination in its own right, complete with public spaces, gathering spots, water fountains, event programming, and no shortage of vibrant public art. The city sought the expertise of local artists and art consultants to curate this multifaceted public art program.

Like many of Texas’s other placemaking initiatives, the Downtown Pathways project has become a celebrated destination – going above and beyond its functionality of a passageway, thanks largely to its public art. In the process, it helps to support the economic development in the surrounding area. The project is largely seen as a catalyst for other spatial connections between the two neighbourhoods.

As our cities grow and evolve, we can look to Texas as an example of how to make the most of the communities of the future – a future where connectivity and connections are front and centre.