Orginally published on Austin Buisness Journal 

By Justin Sayers – Senior Staff Writer, Austin Business Journal

Feb 14, 2025

It's been nearly six years to the day since The District in Round Rock was first approved north of Austin. But after years of tweaking and widening the design of the $500 million-plus mixed-use project across from Dell Technologies Inc.'s headquarters, construction is finally about to begin.

Stakeholders in March will hold a groundbreaking for the 66-acre project near I-35 and State Highway 45 Toll Road. It's a notable milestone for a project that was first brought to the Round Rock City Council in 2017 by California-based Mark IV Capital, was first approved for a development agreement in 2019, and has been moving back through the design, planning and incentives process over the last several years.

The District is slated to total nearly 4 million square feet, including 2 million square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail space, several apartment phases totaling about 1.4 million square feet and 300,000 square feet of hotel space, officials said. Investment is expected to exceed a previous $500 million estimate, due to rising construction costs. It's expected to bring 5,000 jobs at full buildout in 2039.

Executives have cited macroeconomic factors for the delays, such as disruptions from the coronavirus pandemic, which altered capital markets and demand for things like office space and apartments. Still, the development team said the slowdown enabled it to step back and reevaluate the project, which was initially planned to encompass only 1 million square feet and $250 million in investment.

"We've taken a lot of time to be very methodical and intentional about the design," said Randall Tuller, senior vice president of Mark IV Capital and who joined the project about a year ago. "Mark IV Capital, we like to say we build for generations, we are a long-term owner, so when we develop, we do it with the intention of holding (developments) for a very long time. We're pretty intentional about what we're doing and that takes a lot of time to work through the details, get feedback from the market, determine what ultimately is in demand, and (deliver) something that everyone can be proud of."

Round Rock Mayor Craig Morgan called the project a "game-changer" for the city just north of Austin — the metro's largest suburb with more than 130,000 people. Morgan said The District will help achieve the city's vision of adding amenities and being a walkable destination that complements other developments nearby.

He credited the work that Mark IV and the city and economic development team did in taking a step back to come up with a better product, while also trusting Mark IV as it completed other projects in the city, including office campuses in La Frontera. The City Council approved another tweak to The District's planned unit development on Feb. 13 to shift some paseos that were slated for the interior of the project and add multifamily review standards.

"We have a better product now because there was this wait," Morgan said.

Mark IV has been working over several years to expand its stronghold in Texas, including increasing its local staff at a Round Rock office and eyeing other projects in the area. The March groundbreaking for The District will kick off a 12-month infrastructure construction phase for the entirety of the project, led by general contractor W.E. O'Neil Construction, officials said.

Developers then plan to launch construction of the first vertical elements and have indicated that those should be finished by early 2027, although no official timeline was given. That will include construction of the first office building, a 207,000-square-foot building off Main Street called 100 Marshall Circle. Other early vertical construction could include a second office building that is in design stages and is likely to exceed 10 stories and encompass between 280,000 and 320,000 square feet near SH 45 Toll Road. The first apartment building is slated to be 316 units and 270,000 square feet, with 23,000 square feet of attached retail. There also are plans for 25,000 square feet of single-story, freestanding food-and-beverage retail connected to green spaces. In addition, developers are still working to incorporate a historic bungalow on the site that was previously expected to be a coffee shop.

Tuller said The District has been well-received in the market. John Barksadale at CBRE Inc. is handling leasing for the office space, while Aaron Stephenson with Retail Street Advisors is handling retail leasing. Greystar Real Estate Partners is the manager of the first multifamily building.

"The retail market is very tight," Tuller said. "When you overlay that with this location and the amount of the growth that we've seen in Williamson County and Round Rock in particular, there's a lot of interest from retailers. We're being very methodical about curating the tenant roster that really will hit our goals in terms of place-making and experience-oriented retail."

Jeff Ervin, principal with STG Design Architects, which has been working on the project since 2019, said the project is designed to offer something for everyone. That includes people who work from home and want a nearby coffee shop, corporate entities that want nearby amenities for employers, services for homes in the area, diverse housing types to meet the varied needs of Round Rock residents and green spaces for those with active lifestyles.

Another goal was to offer a project that's accessible and integrated into the neighborhood from each direction, similar to Mueller in East Austin, while offering urban density for people who want more affordable homes and don't want to sit in traffic or on freeways every day.

"We kept saying, 'Screw this.' This can't have all the usual attachments," Ervin said, adding that the company was familiar with the area after doing work on Dell's campus. "It has to be a place where you can thrive. If you work from home, that's great. If you're in one of the office buildings, that's great."

Ervin added that STG Design Architects wanted to offer a higher-level design. That's apparent in the office buildings, which will have textual design and brick similar to multifamily buildings, which Ervin said will be unlike the "cold" steel and glass on the many buildings his company has worked on in downtown Austin.

"Round Rock has this long history of artisans. If you look back to the actual Round Rock, it was the start of the Chisholm Trail, there were all of these different metallurgy people that worked in that area. This is really a celebration of architectural craftsmanship," he said.

Plus, he said The District will offer something different from the big box developments typical along Texas suburban interstate corridors. "If you take one step off of that, and you have this great walkable dense area, it keeps Round Rock from turning into Schertz," he said.

The District project may serve as a powder keg as Round Rock matures into a bigger city. Round Rock has a limited amount of undeveloped land, and many at the leadership level have been pushing the need for vertical development, including in downtown, to accommodate the population and corporate boom.

"This could be the trigger that really gets it moving in that direction," Mayor Morgan said, cautioning that the right balance between horizontal and vertical development has to be found. "I don't think we'll be vertical like Austin and Dallas."

He said the mindset has prompted the city to start prioritizing commercial redevelopment to account for more quality-of-life options, such as a shopping center that includes an ice cream shop, movie theater and more. With all the growth, he said planning continues to be the biggest challenge, although he credited the city for its work on water capacity, roads and other infrastructure.

Another wave of growth is anticipated as the Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. plant comes online just to the city's east in Taylor — and The District is expected to be at the center of it.

"I do think that this can be a catalyst to commercial redevelopment (and) new businesses. Obviously, this is going to bring a tax base, sales tax to our community, and then just more quality-of-life stuff. It's really exciting to see and sometimes it takes the first one to spur the rest of them," Morgan said.