Learn five facts about Prosper, Texas, a boomtown 39 miles north of downtown Dallas. (Music: Stockmusic.net)
Prosper is living up to its name with exponential growth
In 2000, Prosper didn’t even have a single stoplight. Now it’s one of the centers of North Texas’ fastest growth.
Update:
This story is part of Boomtowns, a look at some of the cities surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth that are attracting the interest of homebuilders, businesses and new residents as the area grows.
PROSPER — Toney Parker likes to tell people that within 15 years, he and his wife went from living in a little rural town to the middle of a metropolis without moving an inch.
The Parkers left Northern California for Prosper in 2007, frustrated by the Golden State’s high cost of living. At the time, Prosper was known as a bedroom community with no gas stations, grocery stores or banks, and the couple had to go to Frisco or McKinney to shop.
A look at Prosper in images
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That’s far from the case now, as Prosper has grown from 2,000 to more than 35,000 residents over the last two decades, according to city estimates.
Its proximity to job centers like Frisco and Plano plus the convenience of U.S. 380 and the eventual expansion of the Dallas North Tollway through the town have made it popular with homebuilders and developers.
One of those developers is Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, whose Blue Star Land has developed both the massive Gates of Prosper retail development along Preston Road and U.S. 380 and Star Trail, a master-planned community with high-end homes along the tollway expansion.
“I moved out to a little rural area to get out of the city,” Parker said. “And hey, I’m right back in the city.”
Parker said there was a bit of a small-town mentality when he moved in – locals would yell at him for being from California and driving the cost of housing up. With the influx of new residents in North Texas since then, Parker said that has changed a bit, but there is still some resistance to change.
“You can actually see the back-and-forth pull of new school versus old school, the way we’ve always done it versus let’s readdress our processes here,” said Parker, who also serves on the Prosper Chamber of Commerce board.
Prosper’s mayor, David Bristol, moved from Frisco in 2001 because he wanted his kids to go to a small school district. Since 2001, the district has grown from 900 students to more than 22,000.
When Bristol first arrived, Prosper didn’t have a single stoplight, and Preston Road had just two lanes. He remembers the night when he went out with the then-mayor to watch the town’s very first stoplight on Preston Road and Broadway Street blink for the first time.
“Yes, it’s changed some, but that’s the unique thing about Prosper,” Bristol said. “It still to me has that small-town community feel where people, they want to know their neighbors, they want to be a part of what’s going on, and they feel a sense of community.”
As Prosper grows, town leaders are working to expand its major roadways and increase sewer and water capacity with new lift stations and transfer lines.
“We cannot build the roads fast enough to serve the residents,” Bristol said. “The 380 corridor is a plus for us, but because of the growth, it’s becoming nightmarish for people to drive on. We’re doing all the things we can to try and alleviate that by building road infrastructure.”
Prosper completed a new town hall in 2018 as a centerpiece of its downtown, where some buildings remain from when the town thrived in the early 20th century as a market center for farmers who produced cotton and corn in the Blackland Prairie.
But much of the land downtown is still vacant or underutilized. At the end of July, the town council adopted a downtown master plan — a structured program to revitalize the core. One of the key projects will be redevelopment of a 3-acre site around one of the town’s recognizable silos with a hotel, restaurants and retail, which the city says is already being planned by the property owner.
“So many of our surrounding communities have incredible downtown areas. McKinney is the first one that comes to mind, and Celina has done a good job with their downtown,” said Mary Ann Moon, executive director of the Prosper Economic Development Corp. “We don’t have the bones that a lot of those communities had, but we’ve got some terrific investment that has been made here, along with a lot of interest from other investors that want to come to downtown Prosper.”
With single-family housing and commercial development already in full force, Bristol said he’s expecting land acquisitions along the tollway, mainly for multifamily development. But with 6,500 apartments already zoned, city leaders are taking a cautious approach as more developers seek approvals.
“The council has been pretty adamant that we’re not going to just add to that willy-nilly,” Bristol said.
Prosper also has two large medical developments underway from Cook Children’s and Children’s Health, and the town is poised to benefit from the PGA of America’s new $33.5 million headquarters just to the south along U.S. 380 in Frisco. It will be complemented by a $520 million Omni resort scheduled to open next spring.
“I’m really fond of telling folks that right now, we’re not so much in the economic development phase of things,” Moon said. “We’re more in controlled growth and controlled development, making certain that it aligns with the vision for the town.”
PROSPER AT A GLANCE
Population: Estimated 34,136 as of 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau
Location: 39 miles north of downtown Dallas
Racial demographics: 73.4% white, 8.5% Hispanic, 8% Black, 6% Asian, according to U.S. Census Bureau
Median household income: $153,777 as of 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau
Median existing home sale price: $799,500 in July, according to Redfin
Median new construction sale price: $840,938, according to Residential Strategies
Annual single-family home starts: 1,017 through second-quarter 2022, according to Residential Strategies
School district: Prosper ISD
Master-planned communities: Some of the earlier master-planned communities in Prosper starting in the early 2000s were Gentle Creek, Lakes of La Cima and Lakes of Prosper. Today the largest ongoing developments include Windsong Ranch and Star Trail.
Rental communities: Prosper has traditional apartment complexes such as Cortland Windsong Ranch and Orion Prosper. Avilla Grove, a new development from NexMetro, offers a community of single-family homes just for renters.
Retail: H-E-B bought land in Prosper in July. The Gates of Prosper on Preston Road and U.S. 380 will eventually have 1 million square feet of retail space.
Infrastructure projects: The Dallas North Tollway expansion is being constructed and will eventually run through Prosper.
Neighborhood hangout spot: The Gin is the city’s mainstay local restaurant downtown and a popular gathering spot for residents.
History lesson: Community officials initially applied for a post office with a town name of Richland but were informed that name had already been taken. Postmaster B.J. Naugle asked for an alternate name and resident J.C. Slaughter suggested Prosper because crops that year had been very prosperous, according to the town of Prosper.
This story has been updated with the correct population for Prosper, which was 34,136, according to U.S. Census data.
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