By Kathy Warbelow

In 1994, when developer Pete Dwyer first bought land in Manor, east of Austin, he paid just $1,100 an acre. While Austin was on the cusp of a historic technology boom that would cause its economy to surge, things remained slow in the largely rural town of about 1,000 residents on U.S. 290. 

Manor had lost out on a shot at becoming the site of a new regional airport when the city of Austin chose the closed Bergstrom Air Force Base property for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, which opened in 1999. Most housing developers were looking west at that time, not east, to build homes for Austin’s growing population. 

These days, it’s a different story. 

Manor, Del Valle and other communities in eastern Travis County are enjoying their own boom, one that is bringing thousands of new homes, plus acres of commercial development, over the next several years. 

New development is also springing up in Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative’s southwestern territory, in the San Marcos area. 

The co-op added 3,050 meters last year. Even with a modest growth forecast of 3 percent, Bluebonnet is expected to have almost 94,000 meters by the end of 2017. 

The western side of the cooperative’s service area has 16 residential developments either started or on the books, and they account for 90 percent of all planned home development in Bluebonnet’s territory. Thousands of homes have been built, and thousands more are planned for the next few years. 

Since Jan. 1, 2016, a total of 2,759 residential lots have been developed or are being built now. Another roughly 3,000 homes are scheduled for the next few years. Three new Manor ISD schools, one new Del Valle ISD school and various retail, medical and RV park locations are also being built. 

Though not booming at the same rate as Bluebonnet’s western areas, there are other housing developments dotting the co-op’s service area. Bastrop County will add 500 houses in five developments in the next few years. The EDC Business Park is slated for Giddings. Brenham has several smaller housing and retail developments. Bluebonnet also continues to see steady business from oil fields.  Growth in other Bluebonnet Counties

Real estate consultant Eldon Rude of Austin said his clients once weren’t interested in the communities along the Texas 130 toll road corridor. 

“That’s not the case any more,” said Rude, principal of 360 Real Estate Analytics. “There is significant interest like I’ve never seen before.”

Manor now has 14,000 residents, including in its extraterritorial jurisdiction, and is forecast to hit nearly 18,000 by 2020. 

As one measure of the area’s new appeal, Dwyer, the area developer, said some commercial sites along U.S. 290 now sell for as much as $1 million an acre. His company, Dwyer Realty in Manor, is behind 10 completed or active residential and commercial projects in and near Manor. 

Local school districts are scrambling to keep up with enrollment growth. The Manor and Del Valle school districts are building new schools to accommodate families moving into the area. 

Manor ISD has 8,700 students now, but forecasts that enrollment could double within five to 10 years. The district already is building a second high school, a New Tech Middle School and its ninth elementary. 

In the Del Valle district east and southeast of Austin, construction trucks crowd the newly paved streets in residential projects such as Easton Park, near William Cannon Drive and McKinney Falls Parkway. The 1,500-acre project from developer Brookfield Residential eventually will have 10,000 residences, almost all of them single-family homes. 

Whisper Valley, just south of Manor and east of Texas 130, has amenities such as solar panels to provide electricity, geothermal heating and cooling and homes pre-wired for Google’s high-speed fiber internet service. Whisper Valley model homes opened in May, and Bluebonnet is providing underground electric lines for the development. 

Boston-based developer Taurus, which started work on Whisper Valley earlier this year, plans 7,500 residences on the 2,000-acre tract. 

“Finally!” said Tom Bolt, Manor’s city manager, commenting on the city’s growth. The city hired its first full-time planner a couple of years ago, he said, and is adding other staff to handle the wave of development and permit applications. 

The city plans to expand its wastewater plant, with bids going out in June. “We’re expanding capacity where we need to,” he said. 

Rude, the real estate consultant, said the growth in Bluebonnet’s western communities is partly the result of the “natural movement of the market.” 

“There are not as many areas left (in Central Texas) where land is available, with water and electricity access, in the lower price ranges,” he said. 

The stage was set for the development boom about 10 years ago. First, rising demand in recent years pushed up prices of homes on Austin’s west side, putting them beyond the reach of many young families. The continuing gentrification of East Austin has had the same effect. Developers looking for flat, affordable land turned their sights farther east to build houses, especially attractive to first-time buyers. 

By the mid- to late-2000s, a number of projects in eastern Travis County had been approved and permitted. Then the recession hit, and everything came to a halt. 

When the economy began to recover a few years later, the area had plenty of projects poised to fill the pent-up demand. 

“We had an abundance of lots ready to go” in Manor, Bolt said. 

And builders were interested, including both local companies and national names. 

D.R. Horton, the country’s biggest home builder, is building in several developments in the Manor area and has committed to buy 491 lots in Austin’s Colony, off Webberville Road east of Texas 130, said Vera Massaro, vice president at developer Qualico, a Canadian company. Other D.R. Horton subdivisions in the Bluebonnet service area include Cottonwood Creek near San Marcos and Windridge near Lockhart.

Qualico also is the developer of Sun Chase in Bastrop County east of Texas 130 near the Circuit of the Americas race track, where plans call for 2,500 singlefamily homes as well as condominiums and townhomes. Major utilities are in place, and the first 100 lots are being developed, Massaro said. 

“In the last 24 months or so, the level of demand has really increased,” Rude said. 

So who is buying the houses? The mix includes newcomers to Central Texas and a few retirees, but mostly young couples and families looking for housing they can afford. Some work at Samsung’s giant chip plant in northeast Austin, Dwyer said. 

“Slowly but surely, millennials are getting married and starting to realize that living in an apartment at $3,000 a month (in central Austin) isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Dwyer said. 

The new homes sell in the range of the $150,000s to the mid-$200,000s in developments with parks, trails, playgrounds and other amenities. By contrast, the median price for a home in the city of Austin is about $330,000, according to the Austin Board of Realtors. 

Recent transportation improvements have made the area east of Austin more attractive to both builders and buyers. 

The 6-mile Manor Expressway toll road along U.S. 290 opened in 2014, cutting travel time from the east to jobs at major employers such as Samsung. In 2015, Parmer Lane was extended south from U.S. 290 to Texas 130. This year, a stretch of Texas 71 near Texas 130 was opened as a toll road, also. 

Last year, Capital Metro, the public transportation system that serves Austin and parts of Travis and Williamson counties, started local bus service in Manor, with a loop route that connects to a weekday express bus from downtown Elgin to downtown Austin. 

More is coming. The Texas Department of Transportation plans to add a lane in each direction on Texas 130, using what’s now an extrawide grassy median. 

The housing boom also is attracting more services and retail, including health care. Next year, the Seton Healthcare Family plans to open an emergency care center on Texas 71 in Bastrop, with 12 in-patient beds and a medical office building for primary care and specialty doctors. 

Baylor Scott & White will build a new facility on Gregg Manor Road at the Las Entradas North development in Manor. That facility will include a lab and X-ray services and eventually will employ four to six physicians. 

“We’ve always had our eye on Manor,” said Colleen Sundquist, the company’s president for clinic operations in Central Texas. “The community just made sense for us,” but until recently wasn’t quite large enough. Baylor Scott & White also is building a hospital in Pflugerville, just 10 miles away, she said. 

In the past few years, Walmart and H-E-B have built or expanded stores in Manor, Elgin and Bastrop. H-E-B has purchased 17 acres for a new store east of the Austin airport, at FM 973 and Texas 71. The company has not set a timetable for construction. 

Other employers are adding jobs. This year, Capital Wright, a beer distributor, opened a 438,000-square-foot distribution center and warehouse on U.S. 290 in Manor, with temperature-controlled storage for beer and a pickup area for keg buyers. The company is the distributor for Miller and Coors beer brands in 14 Central Texas counties.

Local school districts are scrambling to keep up with enrollment growth. The Manor district, with 8,700 students, plans a third high school. Manor Senior High will be for juniors and seniors; freshmen and sophomores will use the current high school. The district also is building a New Tech Middle School and its ninth elementary, Lagos. 

Royce Avery, Manor ISD superintendent, has launched a “growth and innovation plan” that includes expanded technology and robotics programs, a fine arts academy and International Baccalaureate programs. 

High school students can earn two-year college associate degrees in technology fields along with their regular classes, and go on to tech jobs at Samsung or Applied Materials in Austin. 

The district has retained Templeton Consulting to analyze growth patterns in an area that is shifting from rural to suburban. 

“We can’t just take on the growth; we have to plan for it,” Avery said. “Where are these families coming from? When will we need to go back to our voters for more funding?” 

The Del Valle school district, which straddles Texas 130, has 11,300 students now, and Superintendent Kelly Crook said it is braced for growth from new subdivisions such as Easton Park, where it’s already building a new elementary school, and Whisper Valley. 

In Manor, Dwyer has been able to watch the city evolve from rural town to growing suburb from his office on U.S. 290. His early bets on the city — including investments in water supplies — are paying off. 

“I knew it was going to come,” he said.

Long-term planning has Bluebonnet well prepared for growth

The growth transforming cities and school districts in Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative’s western service area is no surprise. The co-op has been laying the technology groundwork for it for years. Today, Bluebonnet is improving processes to make operations more efficient and responsive, and planning new facilities to accommodate growing service demands. 

Bluebonnet added more than 3,000 meters last year, an all-time high, said Eric Kocian, Bluebonnet’s chief engineer and system operations officer. The co-op now has more than 92,000 meters, up from 82,000 in 2011. 

“In the last year or so, we’ve gone through our processes with a fine-tooth comb to make them more efficient for both commercial and residential developers and for our employees,” Kocian said. “We’re working to allow our folks to focus on the things that are most important and to remove redundant steps.” 

A new member-service team for residential projects will be deployed this year to make the construction process more streamlined and efficient. The new member will deal with one person at Bluebonnet. “From the time they first call us to the day the meter is set, this single point ofc ontact will keep the member informed about the job,” Kocian said. 

Technology that Bluebonnet installed a decade ago has made it easier to add new members and adjust as the economy changes. “We did that knowing someday we would grow. It was an investment for today,” he said. 

Bluebonnet makes strategic use of construction contractors to handle work in the Manor/eastern Travis County and San Marcos areas. “We know we’ll need to add more employees as growth accelerates. It’s coming,” Kocian added. 

In the next five years, Bluebonnet plans to build facilities in the San Marcos and Manor areas to be readily available for construction, power outages and member requests. The Texas 130 corridor in Travis, Hays and Caldwell counties will continue to see substantial residential and commercial growth. Building service centers near Manor and San Marcos will allow Bluebonnet field crews to rapidly meet the needs of hundreds of new homeowners. 

The co-op is always looking at future technology enhancements and improved processes. 

“We plan at least five years down the line. We will continue to make a significant investment in Bluebonnet’s growth,” Kocian said. 

Growth in other counties: 

BASTROP COUNTY: Work continues on the Burleson Crossing retail center in Bastrop; Cedar Creek Estates and Pecan Park subdivisions in Bastrop, the Sun Chase subdivision in the Garfield area and Cedar Creek Estates near Bastrop. Planned or proposed residential developments in Bastrop County include Double Eagle Ranch in the Cedar Creek area, Oaks at Cedar Creek and Pleasant Grove Estates in the Elgin area. 

LEE COUNTY: EDC Business Park is proposed in Giddings. 

WASHINGTON COUNTY: Ralston Creek Estates, a subdivision being built in Brenham, and Burton Villas, a 22-lot subdivision in the Zionsville area off FM 2679; The Crosswinds Estate, a 14-lot development near Brenham, is complete.

By Ed Crowell 
Sarah Beal photos

PRIMARY RISER: Also called a ‘riser pole,’ this is where overhead lines go underground, protected by PVC conduits. Bluebonnet typically uses one power-carrying cable per conduit. A ‘terminator’ at the top of the pole is where an overhead line is spliced to the line heading underground. A silicon seal helps protect the splice from dust, moisture or lightning damage.

Going underground is going forward all over the Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative service area. Subterranean power is popular because it is more reliable and less intrusive on the landscape. It is more expensive than traditional overhead power lines strung between tall poles in yards and along roadways, but the price has fallen in the past decade. 

It’s not just neighborhoods that are sinking their power below ground. New schools and large commercial projects favor buried lines to carry their large electrical loads. 

About 500 miles of Bluebonnet’s 11,000 miles of lines disappear into the earth. Last year about 43 miles of underground lines were added to the co-op’s system and the previous year about 25 miles were added. 

Just east of Austin in Manor, the subdivisions of Presidential Glen, Presidential Meadows and Stonewater have underground power lines along streets that are completed or under construction. It’s the same with Easton Park homes along McKinney Falls Parkway in southeastern Travis County and Pecan Park homes in Bastrop. 

An even bigger development where power lines will be buried is the community of Whisper Valley to be built near Manor off the Texas 130 toll road. Whisper Valley model homes are expected to be open early this month. It’s a massive development billed as a “green” community. The development plans to have 7,500 homes — all served by buried electrical lines — when finished in several years. 

PULLBOX: The length of any stretch of line is limited, because friction between cable and conduit can damage the line, especially when there are twists and turns and elevation changes. A 4-foot-by-4-foot green, fiberglass sectionalizer cabinet, called a ‘pullbox,’ is where power lines end and begin. They are joined electrically so power flows smoothly or can easily be turned off when needed. All of this makes it easier to find faults and reduce the size and duration of outages.

“Most every week we are either trenching for (underground distribution) cable lines or pulling lines through to make connections,” said Shawn Ely, electric distribution design supervisor at Bluebonnet. 

The primary advantage of underground lines is “less electrical exposure to rain, wind, ice and lightning, which increases reliability,” Ely said. The insulated cables and watertight connections are necessary to withstand moisture, but floods could cause power outages if the buried equipment is submerged in water for too long.

One common threat to buried lines is accidental damage caused by homeowners or contractors who dig nearby and inadvertently hit electric lines, which typically are nestled 4 feet below ground. Buried lines “are not visible and therefore are more susceptible to (such) dig-ins,” Ely said. 

The expense of materials, equipment and labor for underground lines has dropped in recent years. A decade ago, buried projects could cost up to 10 times more than overhead lines. Now, on average, buried electric lines in subdivisions cost anywhere from three to eight times more than a comparable system of overhead lines and poles, Ely said. 

Bluebonnet workers generally begin installing underground power lines when a development’s builder installs water lines and storm-water and sewage drainage pipes. The electrical line work is done before streets are paved so Bluebonnet’s lines can cross under the roads where needed. 

Instead of using pole-setting trucks and aerial bucket trucks, Bluebonnet and contractor crews dig trenches for underground lines with backhoes and trenching machines. They also use directional boring rigs and cable-pulling machines. 

TRANSFORMER: Transformers are mounted on a fiberglass pad and housed in green steel boxes. Inside, voltage is decreased to 240 volts or 120 volts, the level of power used by homes and businesses. Each transformer box can serve up to six secondary junction boxes.

All linemen for Bluebonnet are trained in varying degrees of expertise with underground lines along with the regular education they receive to operate and maintain overhead power lines. The training on buried lines includes how to locate the spot where an underground line fault has occurred and how to fix the interrupted electric service. 

To visitors of completed housing developments where underground lines are in place, the clean and uncluttered look of the streets is particularly obvious driving in from highways filled with utility poles, guy-wires and multiple strands of overhead line. That is the case at Shadow Glen in Manor off busy U.S. 290. 

SECONDARY JUNCTION BOX: Also known as an ‘underground junction box’ or UJB for short, this is the connection point where cables extend directly to no more than two homes.

The skyline difference is definitely noticeable, said resident George Stemen, who was walking his dog on a sidewalk near the subdivision’s large recreation center and pool. 

“Oh yeah,” he answered when asked if he was aware of the underground lines when he bought a house in the subdivision in 2013. “It was the same way in San Angelo where I was living before. I think it is an obvious advantage,” he said. 

“The only tradeoff is the green boxes,” he said of the Bluebonnet transformers that are tucked into 4-by-4-foot locked steel boxes near the street. Each distribution box serves four to six houses. 

The skinny foot-high green box in front of each house is the junction box that connects the incoming power to the line running to the house. 

All the boxes, which are locked for safety, are necessary for electrical service and repair. 

(Joe Stafford photo)DISTRIBUTION CABLES: These thick cables, left, carry power using a conductive aluminum center. It is protected and strengthened by layers of other materials, including water-blocking substances and sunlight-resistant polyethylene.

Stemen pointed to a cupola on top of Shadow Glen’s tall water slide structure beside the pool. “They had to rebuild that after it was hit by lightning,” he said. “One nice thing about buried lines is that the power doesn’t usually go out during storms.” 

Lake Somerville State Park officials would agree. The Burleson County park, which is served by Bluebonnet, was closed because of flooding over Memorial Day weekend in 2015, when the lake rose 17 feet above its full level. Weeks of heavy rains put many of the park’s campsites — including those with electrical outlets — under water. 

A Bluebonnet crew conducted an inspection before re-energizing the park’s underground cables to the campsites. Then the cables and other equipment were checked to make sure they were functioning and safe, Ely said.

STAY SAFE AROUND THOSE GREEN BOXES

Those green metal boxes may look interesting, especially to kids, but they are potentially dangerous if tampered with. Inside them is high-voltage equipment. Here are some safety tips:

• Do not obstruct the tops or sides of the large transformer boxes or the smaller junction boxes. Trees, shrubs, fencing, decks or decorations such as planters should be kept at least 5 feet from the sides and back of the boxes and 10 feet from the front. Nothing should be placed on top of the boxes and they should not be painted.

• Children should not play or sit on the boxes.

• If a box is opened, damaged or defaced, please contact a Bluebonnet member service representative at 800-842-7708 immediately.

• The boxes are locked and can only be opened by Bluebonnet employees or authorized contractors to make repairs or restore power.