McKinney's Regional Employment Center and Craig Ranch
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Fearing that McKinney, Texas would become just another "bedroom" community, the City sought to jump-start development within a privately owned 4,500-acre corridor along State Highway 121 known as the Regional Employment Center (REC). The Gateway Planning Group facilitated community consensus for an urban vision, ensured that the vision would translate into a fiscal benefit for the city and the impacted school districts, and crafted a transect-based code for implementation. Kimley Horn & Associates provided input for key roadway network strategies, and the law firm of Abernathy, Roeder,Boyd & Joplin provided guidance on the code and infrastructure financing strategies. |
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Public-Private Synergy
Aided by Gateway Planning's market-based approach, the community leadership recognized that urbanism provides greater potential for economic development and, at the same time, can preserve McKinney's unique historic and neighborhood character. In other words, both commercial and residential development could be accommodated effectively in an urban neighborhood context. After concluding its extensive community-based process that generated a new physical master plan for the Regional Employment Center, the Gateway Planning Group developed a comprehensive public-private implementation strategy. Delineated in the report entitled "McKinney Regional Employment Center Study," the strategy fundamentally fuses together urbanism, place making, public investment in planning, incentives for infrastructure and private investment in true mixed-use environments. Upon the City Council's adoption of the strategy, the Gateway Planning Group developed the transect-based code for implementation.
Making the Plan a Reality - Craig Ranch
The largest of the privately owned parcels, 1,200 acres owned and developed by Craig International, Inc. has been transformed into "Craig Ranch," consisting of a vertically mixed-use town center designed to accomodate future light-rail, surrounded by three pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, a dozen pocket parks, the North Texas Athletic Complex for underprivileged children and a PGA Tour Tournament Players Club. Craig Ranch was designed by town planners, Duany Plater-Zyberk, with the assistance of Gateway Planning principals, Scott Polikov and Milosav Cekic, under the REC code created by Gateway. Because Craig Ranch and the REC urban strategy promised to better leverage transportation investments, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) provided a $2.3 million grant for the new Collin-McKinney Parkway, which will anchor the new town center, under the NCTCOG Land Use Transportation Interface Joint Venture Funding Program.
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The club house for the PGA Tournament Players Club located directly adjacent to the Town Center, which the Gateway Planning Group recommended so that the club house and the town center would be synergistic. |
Return on Investment
Since the new REC plan and code were implemented in 2001, the following has resulted:
- More than 3000 acres of the 4,500 acres zoned for development
- 1,200-acre mixed-use Craig Ranch developing with a projected total economic impact by 2024 of $32 Billion and ad valorem assessed value at build out of approximately $2.9 Billion.
- Multiple destination entertainment venues: PGA Tournament Players Club ($42 Million investment), North Texas Athletic Complex ($25 Million investment), Regional Soccer Complex ($10 Million investment), Leisure Aquatic Center ($10 Million investment)
- $30 Million in public-private agreements and grants for roadway and water/wastewater infrastructure
- A Wal-Mart SuperCenter designed by Kimley Horn as an anchor for an urban village under the REC code crafted by Gateway
- Texas American Planning Awards for Best Current Planning, Project Plan and Community of the Year