Hillwood Communities has opened Ramble, a 1,380-acre project in Celina that will deliver around 4,200 homesites with a $4 billion buildout over the next couple of decades. The neighborhood on Preston Road north of U.S. 380 will feature a 7-mile trail system, a community center, a coffee shop, a turtle-themed park, outdoor sports courts, and two Celina ISD elementary schools.
Fred Balda, longtime president of Hillwood Communities, Ross Perot Jr.’s residential development group, connects amenities at Ramble and across the industry to homebuyer demand. “New jobs are driving the demand for new housing, and there are different types of people in these jobs, but they all want to get to know each other,” he says. “There is this incredible demand to socialize, and we can make it a little bit easier for them to do that.”
Hillwood’s deep track record—it has developed more than 110 master-planned communities since 1988—has helped keep it on the leading edge of trends. “About 10 to 12 years ago, we started to make sure that the lifestyle segment was there on the front end,” Balda says. “It has been very much intentional.”…