Tesla: Developer Buys Land Close to Auto Plant area: Hines Community

In Austin, A development group led by Hines has purchased 1,400 acres for a large-scale planned community near Tesla’s new Gigafactory in Austin.

The Hines site located about three or four miles from Tesla’s new $1.1 billion electric vehicle factory where production is slated to begin any day on Tesla’s Cybertruck pickup, and other electric vehicles.

Cybertruck will be produced at new factory in Austin. Courtesy Tesla

Initially 5,000 employees will work at the Tesla Gigafactory, but Tesla leader Elon Musk has tweeted that the Austin workforce will grow to 20,000 and the company’s corporate headquarters has been expected relocated to Austin.

Houston-based Hines with a presence in 255 cities in 27 countries, is well recognized for its skyscrapers, but it has developed a significant amount of land, including 20 communities with over 10,000 lots since 2005. Hines has another 20,000 additional residential lots currently under development.

This new Hines project in Southeast Austin will be called Mirador. Construction on new Mirador homes is slated to begin in 2022 and home sales will begin in 2023.

Builders in the community is set to include Gehan Homes, Lennar Homes, David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes, MHI Homes, and other builders will come online in the future, Hines said. Mirador will consist of 2,500 single-family lots, 50 acres of multi-family and townhomes and 75 acres of commercial land.

Hines, which was founded in Houston in 1957 by the late Mr. Gerald D. Hines, has significant development partners in the project: Trez Capital, Caravel Ventures and Sumitomo Forestry..

Austin has scored many high-tech additions to its economy recently with Facebook leasing 589,000 SF in a new office tower in downtown; Samsung starting a $17 billion semiconductor plant in nearby Taylor and Trammell Crow is building a 35-story tower for Google on the shores of Lady Bird Lake in downtown Austin.

Tech growth has supercharged the Austin housing market, where home prices jumped 31 percent last year.

“As Austin continues to grow into the tech epicenter of Texas, coupled with a supply-constrained market, the demand for new housing is at its highest,” said Dustin Davidson, managing director at Hines. “Mirador will be critical in providing more options for Austin’s growing population and we are excited to work alongside our partners given they each provide a unique and valued perspective in single-family development.”

Hines recently opened its new 47-story Texas Tower in downtown Houston, where the office market has been sluggish. The 1.2 million-SF building is about 50 percent leased and Hines plans to relocate its global headquarters into the building this year.

For 2022, Hines will be more focused on residential development, industrial and life science projects in its southwest U.S. region, instead of tall office towers, says Mark Cover, CEO of Hines’ Southwest Region.

Hines currently has more than 171 developments in progress around the world. Over the years, Hines has developed, redeveloped or purchased approximately 1,486 properties, totaling over 492 million SF.