Tuesday, June 22, 2004

Southern Trails Mixes Small Neighborhood Feel With Big Community Amenities

Southern Trails Mixes Small Neighborhood Feel With Big Community Amenities

A neighborhood-centered Pearland community just minutes from Texas 288 and Beltway 8, Southern Trails offers its residents resort-style amenities worthy of the largest master-planned developments.

Houston, TX (PRWEB) August 18, 2006

Residents can cool off this summer in the new Southern Trails recreation center and pool complex, which includes a junior Olympic pool with an extensive deep swimming area, a toddler pool and a separate splash park. The complex opens this month.

Overlooking the pool, the recreation center features Prairie-style architecture that complements the community’s natural surroundings. To accommodate parties, meetings and other functions, the center will include a multi-purpose room with a stone fireplace, plasma-screen television and catering kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The recreation center also will include an exercise room, complete with a mix of cardiovascular and strength-training equipment.

Southern Trails residents also will enjoy other amenities, such as lakes, miles of hike-and-bike trails with fitness stations, two covered pavilions with outdoor grills and more than 80 acres dedicated to parks and green space. More than 1,000 trees are being planted to further enhance the landscape, and three lakes will feature native aquatic plants, creating a natural shoreline.

“We are combining open, natural spaces with landscaped areas where residents can gather outdoors, visit with their neighbors and enjoy the recreational amenities of the community,” said Terry Krenek, vice president of sales and marketing for Ashton Woods, the developer of Southern Trails.

Bordered by FM 518 on the north, County Road 59 on the south, County Road 48 on the west, and the future extension of Kirby Drive on the east, Southern Trails includes approximately 1,500 homesites in a range of prices.

In the development’s first phase, Trendmaker Homes offers 14 designs on 80-foot homesites, with prices from the $340,000s to the mid-$400,000s. Ashton Woods and David Weekley build on 60- and 70-foot homesites. Ashton Woods offers homes priced from the $200,000s to the $320,000s and David Weekley features homes with base prices from the $190,000s to the $350,000s. Several of the available 214 homesites offer lake frontage, and pocket parks intersperse the neighborhoods. Visitors can tour an array of decorated models in the community.

Students in Southern Trails attend well-regarded schools within the Alvin Independent School District, including Mary Burks Marek Elementary School, which opened two years ago, and Manvel Junior High. Older students will attend the new Manvel High School when it opens in August.

With quick access to Texas 288 and FM 521, Southern Trails offers residents easy commutes to downtown Houston and the Texas Medical Center. Nearby Beltway 8 also offers convenient east-west access to other Houston-area destinations, such as William P. Hobby Airport and the Clear Lake region. Also, Southern Trails is mere minutes from a wealth of shopping and dining choices in Pearland’s booming retail corridor.

Ranked among the most rapidly growing communities in the Houston area, Pearland is experiencing strong retail growth in response to strong residential development.

In addition to approximately 1 million square feet of retail already open, two planned commercial developments will add a combined 1.5 million square feet of new retail and office space in Pearland. Macy’s, Dillard’s and a nationally known bookstore will anchor Pearland Town Center, a 700,000-square-foot open-air shopping mall at the southwest corner of Texas 288 and FM 518. The Spectrum at Clear Creek, a 1,000-acre mixed-use business and technology park at Kirby Drive and Beltway 8, includes an 850,000-square-foot lifestyle center on 127 acres at the southwest corner of Texas 288 and Beltway 8. A 130,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shop outlet will anchor The Promenade Shops at the Spectrum, which also may include a national hotel chain and a movie theater.

A $130 million retail center anchored by a super-sized H-E-B Plus Store – only the second such store in the Houston area – will break ground this fall and is slated for completion by the summer of 2007. Other retailers will include Academy Sports & Outdoors, Hobby Lobby, Amegy Bank, Compass Bank, La Madeleine and McAllister’s Deli.

Also, several medical facilities are in the works, including a 150,000-square-foot building by Memorial Hermann Healthcare System, a 200-bed hospital at the northeast corner of Texas 288 and FM 518, and HCA’s 81,500-square-foot Pearland Medical Complex at the southwest corner of FM 2234 and Texas 288. Also under construction, the 80,000-square-foot Medical Commons of Pearland, at FM 518 and County Road 90, includes medical offices, an ambulatory surgery center, a diagnostic imaging center and an emergency and urgent care center.

Visit our website: http://www. southern-trails. com/home. html (http://www. southern-trails. com/home. html)

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