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
Giants 400 | Aug 15, 2019
Top 140 Multifamily Sector Architecture Firms for 2019
Humphreys & Partners, KTGY, SCB, CallisonRTKL, and Perkins Eastman top the rankings of the nation's largest multifamily sector architecture and architecture engineering (AE) firms, as reported in Building Design+Construction's 2019 Giants 300 Report.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 12, 2019
Multifamily Amenities 2019: Rethinking the $30,000 cup of coffee
What amenities are “must-have” rather than “nice to have” for the local market? Which amenities will attract the renters or buyers you’re targeting? The 2019 Multifamily Amenities Survey measured 113 amenity choices.
| Aug 9, 2019
Whirlpool Debuts Smart All-In-One Washer and Dryer
Whirlpool washer and dryer in one machine can provide laundering solutions in apartments with limited space.
| Aug 9, 2019
'Buildings Don't Lie': A building science reference book worth your time and money
Review of "Buildings Don't Lie," by engineer Henry Gifford.
| Aug 8, 2019
Wilsonart Engineered Surfaces to acquire Czech firm Technistone
U.S. manufacturer Wilsonart, maker of High Pressure Laminate, Quartz, Solid Surface, Coordinated TFL and Edgebanding products, moves to acquire Technistone.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 7, 2019
New start, new life, new friends: Student residence life in the age of Instagram
When it comes to the design and space planning of your residence life program, the quality of the space you create will be reflected in the social media feeds of your students.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 6, 2019
Using P3s to create affordable housing, public services
How the city of Chicago and nonprofit groups partnered to build three libraries plus affordable housing in underserved neighborhoods.
Multifamily Housing | Aug 3, 2019
A plant—or at least its image—grows in Brooklyn
A 90-foot mural overlooks the courtyard of a new residential building.
| Aug 2, 2019
Closet System Adds Value to Grand Rapids Apartment Community
20 Fulton Street East is a 12-story residential community in downtown Grand Rapids, Mich., developed by Brookstone Realty Management, where Organized Living's closet system was installed by dealer Rayhaven Group.
Multifamily Housing | Jul 31, 2019
Amenities war no more? Research report explores multifamily market
Multifamily developers show no signs of pulling back on specialty spaces and unique offerings in an effort to attract high-quality tenants, according to new research from Multifamily Design+Construction.