$2B Mixed-Use Campus Breaks Ground in Austin

Austin-based Inspire Development has broken ground on Pearson Ranch, a $2 billion mixed-use development across 156 acres in Northwest Austin, the metro’s thriving tech corridor. The Williamson County campus will include 2.6 million square feet of Class A office space encompassing a 48-acre corporate campus, two hotels, 200,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and recreational space, along with a 2,500-unit multifamily component and 30 acres of green space.

The development team includes Urban Design Associates, serving as land use master planner, as well as Land Strategies Inc., acting as local land planner, while BGE will serve as the project’s civil engineer. The mixed-use development design is in the hands of Davies Collaborative, which will head the design of the multifamily component, while Powers Brown will be responsible for the office portion of Pearson Ranch.

The campus is designed “with a focus on sustainability, vitality and community lifestyle”, Inspire Development noted in a press release. Green spaces will include parks, public plazas, as well as hike-and-bike trails.

The Austin Tech Hub

Pearson Ranch will take shape on multiple parcels on the NE corner of State Highway 45 and West Parmer Lane. The business park will be bordered by Ventana Oaks Luxury Apartment Homes and will be situated some 2 miles northwest of Apple West Parmer Lane Campus, the tech giant’s upcoming $1 billion campus encompassing 3 million square feet.

The Domain, a submarket offering a live-work-play environment, will be less than 10 miles away. In December, Amazon signed a 332,865-square-foot lease with Cousins Properties, expanding its space within the submarket and fully occupying Domain 9, a Class A office tower, with plan to bring an additional 2,000 jobs to Austin.

Notable tenants in the area include Hewlett-Packard, Electronic Arts, Nvidia and Activision Blizzard, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, among others.

The initial phase

The 41-acre first phase of Pearson Ranch will feature an approximately 600,000-square-foot office component, three multifamily communities as well as lifestyle retail space. While the developer is now beginning the initial phase of the mixed-use hub, construction until full build-out is expected to last between 10 to 15 years.

For the construction of the first phase, Inspire Development secured a $14.5 million loan originated by Keystone Bank, Williams County records show.

In the last two years, office development shifted to the suburbs. In 2020, 35 percent of office projects in the planning stages were in the suburbs and by the end of last year, that number increased to 48 percent.

During 2021, developers started construction on 4.4 million square feet of office space in the Austin metro, representing the largest amount of office starts nationwide. As of December 2021, nearly 9.3 million square feet of office space was underway in Greater Austin, equating to 10.6 percent of total stock, well outpacing other leading markets such as Nashville (8 percent) and Brooklyn (5.2 percent).