By Taylor Williams
The municipalities that comprise Houston’s southeastern suburban rings are on the rise, fueled not only by the larger population growth that has defined Texas in the 21st century, but also by expanded commerce and real estate development tied to the ports of Houston and Galveston.
These municipalities vary tremendously from one to the next with regard to their size, both land- and population-wise. In addition, they possess varying degrees of maturity in terms of their microeconomies and real estate markets. Yet among the four cities in this region that Texas Real Estate Business spoke with for this story — Alvin, Webster, League City and Nassau Bay — some commonalities exist within their economic development endeavors.
These include drawing on growth in the hospitality sector from the Port of Galveston’s thriving cruise business, as well as preparing for future real estate opportunities that will emerge from infrastructural projects, most notably the expansion of State Highway 99, known locally as Grand Parkway.
As these cities work to expand their housing inventories, recruit new businesses and provide the ideal mixes of retail, restaurant and entertainment uses, they look to both traditional and new economic drivers. In doing so, they cultivate their own growth stories to present to developers, investors, tourists and residents alike.
Alvin
The aforementioned Grand Parkway expansion project is an especially big deal for Alvin, a city in Brazoria County of about 30,000 people. That’s because the project represents a mechanism for unlocking value in undeveloped real estate along the future Grand Parkway corridor — sites that could eventually be home to industrial, residential or retail uses.
“Real estate pricing is already starting to rise as the Grand Parkway project gets closer to its start date,” says Paul Chavez, the city’s economic development director. “A lot of local mom-and-pop businesses are getting squeezed because asking prices for leasable spaces along the highway are going up. So that’s a concern. But it’s also an interesting driver because of expectations of the area being a gold mine once that project goes through due to so many more vehicles per day coming through our area.”
Alvin has already seen some spillover growth from large-scale residential and commercial developments in neighboring municipalities, Chavez says. He sees potential for a continuation of this trend with some of the industrial sites that could open up from the thoroughfare’s expansion. Although these parcels are technically outside Alvin city limits, they are close enough to the city such that residents could feasibly commute there.
Some of this activity is already in the making. Maxter Healthcare, a manufacturer of medical-grade gloves and other personal protective equipment, is in the process of developing a 215-acre plant in Brazoria County. The first of five planned buildings is now operational, and the project embodies a major source of growth for the area, even as questions swirl about how tariffs and trade wars will impact manufacturers.
“We talk regularly with Maxter about where their suppliers are located, because those are the groups that we want to bring here,” says Chavez. “A lot of their raw materials are coming in and out of Freeport, so having the direct access on [State Highway] 288 is very appealing to them.”
“We can take advantage of that and accommodate that industrial growth due to us having unusual city limits and so much land and extraterritorial jurisdiction that feeds directly into the port,” he continues. “A lot of people who live in Alvin proper work at Texas Medical Center or in the specialty chemical and industrial sector near Port Freeport and the Chocolate Bayou area. So our economy is split between those who work north and south of us. Our daytime population migrates out during the day, and it’s interesting to see the different types of people who come back and call Alvin home.”
Like most cities its size that are in the midst of a growth spurt, Alvin is also very focused on developing real estate that can support new retail, food-and-beverage (F&B) and entertainment uses. Chavez sees especially big potential for diversification in the city’s F&B scene and is engaging with retail owners that are experienced in both delivering ground-up product as well as rehabilitating older properties to provide turnkey spaces.
“We want to attract those restaurants, but we have to simultaneously attract real estate companies that are interested in redevelopment opportunities — some of the more regional players that will buy shopping centers, fix them up and maybe flip them through 1031s,” says Chavez. “We have shopping centers that are well-located and benefitting from the infrastructural expansions and 2,000 single-family homes being built in the area, but which need to be improved aesthetically.”
Construction of a big chunk of those single-family homes began recently with the groundbreaking of Preservation Creek, a 2,900-acre master-planned development that the City of Alvin is building in partnership with W Land Development. The community will also feature more than 1,100 acres of protected parks, trails, waterways and green space.
“We’re working to show [real estate] developers that our large, sleepy town is about to wake up and roar, and that they’ll want to get in soon before they’re shut out of the market,” says Chavez.
Webster
As the veritable geographic midpoint between downtown Houston and Galveston, Webster has the best of both worlds: ties to major industries in Houston like healthcare, energy and aerospace, as well as an established hospitality, retail, dining and entertainment sector that naturally supports tourism and the cruise industry in Galveston.
On the first point, Webster represents an epicenter of healthcare activity via its 2 million square feet of medical facilities. The city has experienced considerable development of new hospitals, medical office complexes and other associated healthcare facilities in recent years, such that Betsy Giusto, Webster’s director of economic development, proclaims the city as the “medical center of the south.” Webster’s medical center serves over 24 cities, offers two Level II trauma centers and is on the path to achieving Level I trauma certification. In addition, the center houses a dedicated heart hospital, as well as pediatric and neonatal intensive care services. But Webster’s ties to the energy and aerospace industries are visible as well.
“We have a number of innovative aerospace companies in Webster in very close proximity to NASA Johnson Space Center and Spaceport, like Axiom Space, which is building the successor to the ISS and designing the next generation spacesuit for Mars and beyond,” Giusto says. “Other aerospace companies in Webster that are leading the commercial space business include Ad Adstra Rocket Co., Voyager Space, Leidos, KBR and Airbus.”
Webster also has several business parks that span between 10 and 20 acres and are home to global companies like Olympus and ARI Armaturen (a German valve company), as well as Prognost, Rainbow International and Rentokil. In addition, ExxonMobil touts the “Wink to Webster” pipeline — the largest long-haul crude pipeline in the country, according to Giusto.
On the second point, Webster has upped its game in recent years via Flyway, an 80-acre entertainment district that is anchored by the Great Wolf Lodge resort and conference center. Giusto emphasizes the extent to which this project has elevated Webster as the only Great Wolf Lodge in the Houston area — a powerful tourism attraction.
“Flyway is a destination unlike any other in the Houston MSA; Houston Business Journal recently named Great Wolf Lodge as the winner of the ‘Landmark of the Year’ award in hospitality,” she says. “Flyway is an iconic dining, entertainment and hospitality district that fuses the best of the indoors and outdoors with boardwalk and Clear Creek views, pedestrian pathways and opportunities to enjoy fantastic restaurants and entertainment venues.”
According to Giusto, Webster has more than 150 restaurants and entertainment venues to its name, with more slated to open this year. Construction will also begin this summer on a 96,000-square-foot Andretti’s Indoor Karting & Games, and Chicken N Pickle recently opened a sports venue at Flyway. Several local F&B concepts have also found success at the development, including Mexican restaurant Vida Marisco’s. Ambriza, a Brazilian steakhouse concept from the same ownership group, will also soon be opening at Flyway.
League City
Located midway between Houston and Galveston on I-45, League City differs dramatically from all other cities spotlighted in this story by virtue of its six-figure population. As such, housing is a major priority. Fortunately, about 40 percent of League City’s land base remains undeveloped, and multiple major residential developments are underway to meet demand.
These include large tracts on the west side of League City that will be developed, at least in part, by the residential divisions of real estate giants like Hines, Hillwood, Coventry Development Corp. and Brookfield Residential Properties. All told, League City has about 11,000 total homes in various stages of development within its pipeline.
These residential projects are complemented by development districts that were established by the newly approved Westside Master Plan. These districts include The Gateway, a commercial hub that will front the future Grand Parkway and welcome people to the city, and The Preserve, which is envisioned as a collection of parks and green spaces that will allow existing water features to function as communal amenities.
This is all according to Scott D. Livingston, League City’s director of economic development. Like his counterparts in Webster, Livingston also sees League City as ideally positioned to tap equally into the growth of Houston and Galveston’s core industries.
“Galveston’s cruise terminals and tourism are big for this region; some 8 million people visit Galveston on a regular basis, and it’s the fourth-busiest cruise ship terminal in the country,” he explains. “Most visitors and cruisers pass through I-45 and League City to get there. And east of us, Kemah also gets several million visitors per year, and Clear Lake is also a tourism hotspot.”
“And we can’t forget the NASA Johnson Space Center and Space Houston, which receives more than 1 million visitors per year,” he continues. “And the Houston Spaceport is a big deal. There’s a large percentage of NASA Johnson Space Center workers and contractors who live in League City — about 20 percent — so we have economic growth drivers in the form of petrochemicals and energy, tourism, space, plus medical and life sciences.”
Livingston notes that the city has an average annual household income of about $140,000 and recently landed a major battery energy storage system deal with Peregrine Energy Solutions. That deal is expected to generate some $80 million in regional economic impact by 2027. Both of these factors are conducive to absorbing the new residential development and attracting new, family-friendly entertainment concepts, which is a big priority.
On the latter note, League City was also in the running to land the aforementioned Great Wolf Lodge and convention center project that ultimately went to Webster. Although Livingston acknowledges that the city was fairly aggressive in its courtship of that particular deal, he remains adamant that League City stays true to its core values when communicating with prospective businesses. In addition, he’s a firm believer in working with, not against, his neighboring municipality.
“We like to have synergies with Webster, because when people come down here from other places, they don’t know what’s Webster and what’s League City,” he explains. “Webster has done a great job with Flyway and Great Wolf Lodge, but when those projects go elsewhere, we all still have to work together as a region. Proximity to parks and recreation and quality of life, plus good bang for your buck for new homes, which start at about $400,000 for starter homes, plus good schools — these are all reasons people want to be here.”
Nassau Bay
Thanks to its adjacency to the NASA Johnson Space Center, Nassau Bay, a town of just 1.75 square miles and about 6,000 people, was developed in the 1960s as a residential enclave for NASA workers and contractors. The city’s connection with the government space exploration agency remains strong to this day, accounting for a housing market that is almost completely built-out and home to many wealthy retirees.
But according to Paul Lopez, Nassau Bay’s interim city manager, major efforts are underway to upgrade that reputation and transform the community’s residential demographics and visitor base. As Nassau Bay has slowly but surely attracted more young families, the city has prioritized public infrastructure projects to accommodate accordingly.
“We’ve always been a retirement community with an elderly population and not many children,” says Lopez. “Now that we’re seeing a demographic change, we’ve invested money in our parks, landscaping and wildlife preserve. We’ve redesigned some of our park trails to be accessible by golf cart, which we thought was important because of our elderly population who want to enjoy it with their grandchildren, so we have those designated golf cart parking areas and trails for those vehicles.”
But the real overarching goal that Nassau Bay’s economic development efforts are geared toward — becoming a destination — is less straightforward. Yet one very tangible project — the opening of a Margaritaville hotel and resort — should be particularly instrumental in allowing Nassau Bay to achieve that goal.
The landlocked community does not have the acreage to support the ground-up development of a full-scale hotel and resort for the Jimmy Buffett-branded hospitality concept, so the plan is to remodel the existing Hilton Houston NASA Clear Lake hotel. The hotel’s licensing contract with Hilton is set to expire soon, and the plan is to close the resort for about a year and retrofit the property to Margaritaville’s specifications.
“Margaritaville expressed interest in that hotel because the Hilton brand is coming off that property, which will be a more boutique version of the hotel concept,” says Lopez. “The hotel’s bones and infrastructure are good, and we still have some inspections to do, but we hope to have the deal secured by the end of June. We’re looking into branding Margaritaville with the city and with Johnson Space Center as part of positioning ourselves as more of a destination and less of a small retirement community.”
Beyond ensuring the Margaritaville deal goes through, Nassau Bay is focused on attracting more fine-dining restaurants, nightlife and entertainment uses. Bolstering the presence of these concepts will go a long way in transforming the city’s perception among its residents and visitors.
“When people are in Nassau Bay, we want them to know that they’re in Nassau Bay; we’re really focused on becoming a destination city,” Lopez says. “We’re leaving the small-town and going for the destination; we want people to come here to vacation and stay in our hotels and give Kemah a run for its money.”
— This article originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of Texas Real Estate Business magazine.