Krishna Nimmagadda has technically been a Texan since 2017. He might have ended up an Austinite if it wasn’t for his son, who preferred the scholastic offerings of a high school in Frisco.
A longtime tech entrepreneur, Nimmagadda saw the growth emerging near U.S. 380, north of Frisco and across Collin County. Opportunities to buy land began to emerge.
Capitalize Ventures, the firm Nimmagadda runs alongside Anil Sunkara and Satya Donepudi, has more than 500 acres in commercial holdings.
Among those parcels is a prime corner in Prosper, situated at the intersection of the Dallas North Tollway extension and Prosper Trail.
The 35-acre site, which has undergone entitlements and zoning with the city, is slated to one day hold three hotels, hundreds of dwellings, extensive retail, and creative office and connected open space through a four-phase process.
For Nimmagadda, what has been dubbed the Prosper Arts District is a legacy project.
“We own other property, but not all land and not all locations are suitable to build a legacy,” he said. “Some of them you just have to exit, to sell and make a profit for your investors and you move on. But there are only a few opportunities like these that come up.”
Capitalize Ventures has held the site for about two years.
Since then, the PGA of America headquarters has opened, and the Fields West mixed-use development, Universal Kids Resort and a Baylor Scott & White expansion effort are now under construction.
And that’s just to the south.
Nearby Blue Star Land is underway with another phase of expansion at the Gates of Prosper.
Further north, Celina has seen a handful of new single-family communities announced this year alone, such as Hillwood’s Ramble and Rainwater Crossing. It will also see the addition of Methodist Celina Medical Center, a $200 million project on 47.6 acres that topped out late last year.
Nimmagadda points to hospitals as sources of potential residents for the multifamily units that will one day fill the Prosper Arts District, people who will also dine and shop at the retail offerings walkable from their homes.
The onslaught of development has given Nimmagadda the confidence to pursue a more sophisticated lineup of retail, focused on boutique tenants, rather than big boxes. That approach helped gain the swift approval from the city council, a process that took months rather than years.
With an experienced partner on the project like architecture firm Gensler, Nimmagadda has worked on uses that go beyond those anticipated to contribute to the 400 full-time job count between the hotel, retail and limited creative space.
Those could include features that add community value and could serve as attractions, such as a nightly fountain show, weekend light show and incorporating the performing arts.
The Prosper Arts District will kick off with a sports-focused hotel concept, in addition to retail and other infrastructure components.
The order is intentional. The hotel traffic can help sustain the type of retail and restaurants that Prosper, a township with a median home price of more than $930,000, wants to attract for its residents in that corridor.
Gensler has brought Capitalize Ventures examples of the future of mixed-use.
For Nimmagadda, it begs the question of how the Prosper Arts District can not only become sustainable, but how it can become an integral part of the community for the next 20 years.
“We’re hoping we’ll set the bar for what’s coming north of 380,” he said.
Work on the Prosper Arts District is expected to start later this year.
