Port Aransas is a city on Mustang Island, an 18-mile-long barrier island on the eastern coast of Texas along the Gulf of Mexico, about 180 miles southeast of San Antonio. The city is a fishing, beach, and resort village with 4,000 local residents and five million visitors per year, according to the local Chamber of Commerce. Eco-tourism is one of its economic focuses.
After incurring major damage from Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, Port Aransas has been attracting new development that includes the city’s first conference center, for assemblies of between 500 and 2,000 people, which is scheduled to open in 2021. A 225-key hotel-conference center is slated to break ground next February, as is a new marina/ resort sometime next year.
Port Aransas is also where three upscale mixed-use communities are under development or expansion. These include:
•Cinnamon Shore South—a $1.3 billion, 300-acre subdivision within the 1,000-acre Cinnamon Shore beachfront master planned community—will include luxury homes, Town Center residences, community pools, dining and retail districts, a boutique hotel and a health and wellness center.
•Last June, Palmilla Beach Resort & Golf Community, developed and owned by McCombs Properties, opened a nine-hole golf course, plus a three-hole par-3 course with driving range called The Loop. Palmilla offers condos, townhouses, cottages, and custom homes, starting from the $500s. MPA Austin and Cornerstone Architects are the architects, Schnell Urban Design the design consultant and land planner, and Fortis Homes, Turichhi Builders, Arbogast Home and Pelican Custom Homes the residential contractors.
•Sunflower Beach Resorts & Residences, situated within 50 acres of protected dune reserves, has nearly completed its first phase of The Camp, consisting of 25 luxury one- and two-bedroom cabins priced from $382,000 to $499,000. The community itself features beach homes, 21 single-level poolside condos, and several buildable lots. The Camp’s developers are BMG Wonderland and Legacy DCS.
Sea Oats Group is the developer of Cinnamon Shore. Its CEO, Jeff Lamkin, tells BD+C that the first phase of Cinnamon Shore South, which broke ground a year ago, has eight of the first 20 homes under construction. The build-out of Cinnamon Shore South is expected to encompass around 1,000 housing units, and take between 15 and 20 years to complete.
The houses under construction at Cinnamon Shore South are all elevated and built to resist flooding and high winds.
The elevations of all of the buildings in this subdivision will be 10 to 11 feet above sea level. Lamkin says the street is 6½ feet above, and the buildings will sit on leakproof elevated slabs over sand fill that’s another 4½ feet above street level.
The Texas Gulf Coast is perennially susceptible to high winds. Lamkin says that for resilience, the houses at Cinnamon Shore South will include bolts placed every 18 inches around the perimeter that secure the roof to the foundation. The houses’ windows can resist winds up to 140 miles per hour. Sea Oats is specifying 32-gauge aluminum roofing, Azek decking, and Hardiplank siding. The community was designed so there’s not a lot of debris when winds kick up.
(Cinnamon Shore South’s building team includes Kissling Architecture and the Waggoner Custom Homes.)
Lamkin says that before Sea Oats considers developing beachfront property, it compares old and new shoreline imagery to determine accretion, stability, and erosion. It also looks at the post-storm durability of the property’s dune system; Cinnamon Shore’s dunes are between 14 and 30 ft high, and 300 ft wide, he says.
Lamkin calculates that resilience can double the cost of construction for coastal projects. Sea Oats spent $600,000 alone to build a dune crossover to the community’s golf course.
But Port Aransas’ marketing pitch is that it offers luxury living at a bargain compared to similar homes and communities in coastal Florida or California. Fifty-foot Gulf-front lots there are still selling for under $1 million, versus $4 million to $5 million in Florida or California. “Coastal homes in Texas might sell for $3 million, compared to $9 million in Florida and $12 million in California, mostly because the cost of land,” Lamkin explains.
When asked why it took so long for developers to leap into beachfront property like Port Aransas, Lamkin—whose company started the 63-acre Cinnamon Shore North in 2007—says that Texas’ economy has shifted from depending on gas and oil for 70% of its tax revenue in the 1980s, to where that sector contributes only about 20% today. Other sectors, like tourism and entertainment, have been picking up the slack.
It hasn’t hurt, either, that the housing market in Texas is still relatively inexpensive, vis a vis other markets on the east and west coast. And Texas led all states in terms of seasonally adjusted annual job growth by adding 323,000 jobs from July 2018 to July 2019, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. These factors have driven Texas’ population to exceed 29 million, from 25.1 million in 2010.
Related Stories
| Nov 15, 2013
Metal makes its mark on interior spaces
Beyond its long-standing role as a preferred material for a building’s structure and roof, metal is making its mark on interior spaces as well.
| Nov 13, 2013
Installed capacity of geothermal heat pumps to grow by 150% by 2020, says study
The worldwide installed capacity of GHP systems will reach 127.4 gigawatts-thermal over the next seven years, growth of nearly 150%, according to a recent report from Navigant Research.
| Nov 8, 2013
Net-zero bellwether demonstrates extreme green, multifamily style
The 10-unit zHome in Issaquah Highlands, Wash., is the nation’s first net-zero multifamily project, as certified this year by the International Living Future Institute.
| Nov 6, 2013
Dallas’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2030 advances with second phase of green codes
Dallas stands out as one of the few large cities that is enforcing a green building code, with the city aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030.
| Oct 30, 2013
15 stellar historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and renovation projects
The winners of the 2013 Reconstruction Awards showcase the best work of distinguished Building Teams, encompassing historic preservation, adaptive reuse, and renovations and additions.
| Oct 30, 2013
11 hot BIM/VDC topics for 2013
If you like to geek out on building information modeling and virtual design and construction, you should enjoy this overview of the top BIM/VDC topics.
| Oct 28, 2013
Urban growth doesn’t have to destroy nature—it can work with it
Our collective desire to live in cities has never been stronger. According to the World Health Organization, 60% of the world’s population will live in a city by 2030. As urban populations swell, what people demand from their cities is evolving.
| Oct 25, 2013
$3B Willets Points mixed-use development in New York wins City Council approval
The $3 billion Willets Points plan in New York City that will transform 23 acres into a mixed-use development has gained approval from the City Council.
| Oct 23, 2013
Gehry, Foster join Battersea Power Station redevelopment
Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have been selected to design a retail section within the £8 billion redevelopment of Battersea Power Station in London.
| Oct 18, 2013
Meet the winners of BD+C's $5,000 Vision U40 Competition
Fifteen teams competed last week in the first annual Vision U40 Competition at BD+C's Under 40 Leadership Summit in San Francisco. Here are the five winning teams, including the $3,000 grand prize honorees.
