With the completion of Toll 130 and the bounded area it created with Hwy. 79 and FM 685, Hutto officials, developers and designers have already put in motion plans to utilize a space that could radically change the future of the entire city - by returning to the past.
Named Hutto 400 when it was announced in 2005, the new venture is now dubbed The Crossings of Carmel Creek. Plans for the site include a 466-acre, vertical, mixed-use retail, residential and commercial development.
"This brings to Hutto the New Urbanism concepts that communities, such as Hutto and Taylor, embraced 100 years ago," Hutto City Manager Ed Broussard said. "You had the combination of downtown businesses and residential. We've separated residential from business, dividing our communities. We're bringing those elements back."
The strategic location - both at the juncture of three important roadways and within the Austin metro area - and continuing growth of the region are key factors in the city's decision to pursue this project.
Atlantic Coast Developers, LLC, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based group, and New York-based Glenmont Capital Management, LLC, are the project's developers. TBG Partners, an Austin firm, and Atlanta-based Phillips Partnership, P.C. will be in charge of design.
No tenants have been announced yet, and the estimated cost is still undisclosed. Groundbreaking is planned for next year.
Defining New Urbanism
New Urbanism is a design concept based on mixed-use communities that are pedestrian friendly and well-connected.
"When we look back at the urban experience of the past, there were both good and bad things about that experience," said Bill Sulzbacher, president of Atlantic Coast Developers. "But what have been lifted are the good things - that you live close to where you work, close to shopping, that you are able to walk every place you want to go."
The Crossings will include a traditional shopping center and a town center that will have a shop-lined street with residential and office space above the retail.
Matthew Lewis, Hutto director of community development, echoed Sulzbacher's intentions to make connectivity and walkability priorities.
"We're paying special attention to parkland and making sure the open space is connected to the street," Lewis said. "The overall street network is planned to promote walking, almost functioning as a park."
Shopping, working and more
In addition to more retail and commercial options, the community will provide new choices in housing.
"There's a number of people that want to live in downtown Austin that can't afford it - people who want to live in a mixed-use development," Lewis said. "[They range] from young families to senior citizens."
Currently Hutto housing is primarily single family and mostly the same style. Broussard said that the housing stock in Hutto will be diversified with The Crossings.
"This allows for Hutto's small-town feeling with some of the big city amenities," he said.
"It really helps put us on the map," Broussard said. "This type of development hasn't been seen in east Williamson County yet. It has a great potential for possibility."
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