Celina's New Bluewood Development to Add 900 Homes to the Collin County Boom
With Plano, Frisco, and McKinney in perpetual boom mode, now it’s Celina’s turn to cash in on the Collin County growth explosion. Strategically located 40 miles north of Downtown Dallas, between Preston Road and the future Dallas North Tollway extension, the farming community is geographically positioned to be the next hotspot in North Texas.
Hillwood Communities just opened its Bluewood development, which will add 900 new single-family homes to Celina’s landscape, according to the Dallas Morning News. Since homes start in the mid-$200,000s, the price point is an ideal fit with the city’s median home value of $287,000.
"Homeowners will have the unique opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds: a small town and family-friendly culture in a natural setting that still has easy access to major metropolitan areas." Fred Balda, president of Hillwood Communities, said in a statement.
Builders for the 250-acre development include CalAtlantic Homes, D.R. Horton, M/I Homes, and Meritage Homes. And amenities run the gamut from a resort-style swimming pool and lush community parks with hiking and biking trails to a site for a future elementary school.
With 80 communities and 25,000 homes to its credit, Hillwood Communities is one of the largest residential developers in Texas.
Since 2000, the population in Collin County skyrocketed almost 90 percent, and Celina’s census went from a meager 1,800 to 11,000, which is nearly twice the size of its 2010 headcount.
Based on comparable land mass, the populations of Frisco, McKinney, and Celina are projected to respectively top out at around 350,000 residents by build-out.
"There's this progression. People move from Dallas to Richardson to Plano to Frisco and keep going because they want the open space, the open feel," Celina Mayor Sean Terry told the Dallas Morning News in an interview late last year.
Due to the natural flow of suburban migration, Frisco and McKinney are growing at full throttle while Celina is still feeling the tip of the iceberg. Terry anticipates Celina’s growth spurts will mostly occur between 2020 and 2030. But that doesn’t keep city officials from monitoring each leg of the journey because now is the time to develop strategic, comprehensive plans.
“It's like playing monopoly, and we don't want to make a mistake on any step," Terry told the News. "We're finding our niche. What are we going to be?"