Texas college buys 100 acres for planned campus along 290 in Waller

 

The fast-growing city of Waller, northwest of Houston, is getting a new college — and more.

The Blinn College District, a Brenham-based two-year educational institution, has acquired 100 acres for a new campus in Waller, the seller, Peter Terpstra of Hockley-based Terpstra & Associates, told the Houston Business Journal.

The sale of the site on the northeastern corner of the intersection of FM 2920 and Binford Road closed on Oct. 23. Terpstra declined to disclose the sales price but said it was a multimillion-dollar transaction.

Justin Whitworth of Oldham Goodwin, who represented Blinn College, confirmed the sale but deferred to Blinn College for development plans. Blinn College did not respond to a request for comment.

The 100 acres are part of 450 acres of agricultural land Terpstra has accumulated for a planned town center development along U.S. Highway 290.

Terpstra and partner David Klein are developing the town center and are currently working on getting utilities to the site, Terpstra said.

“We’ve been holding it up to now, waiting on the outlying development of residential development,” he said. “And it’s happening so rapid now that our town center is starting to attract users such as Blinn, and it will attract other large retail users.”

Terpstra expects to start selling the first parcels for retail development in about 18 months and to sell them in phases of 50 to 60 acres over several years. Some of the land could also be sold to industrial users, he said, and a portion south of the Blinn College site could be sold to a multifamily developer.

“Obviously, the sale to Blinn Junior College is going to require some student housing and so forth, so that will tend to fall in place as the developments begin,” Terpstra said.

Blinn College currently has campuses in Brenham, Bryan, Schulenburg and Sealy. In Waller, it has just opened a section in Waller Independent School District’s W.C. Schultz Junior High School at 20950 Field Store Road.

Combined, its campuses provide more than $370 million in economic impact per year for local economies, according to a 2020 study from economic data company Emsi cited on Blinn’s website.

H-E-B’s 500-acre campus underway nearby
Earlier this year, Terpstra sold 500 acres just outside Hempstead to San Antonio-based H-E-B LP for a massive distribution campus.

The campus will include several distribution facilities developed in multiple phases to support supply chain operations for H-E-B’s growing business, the company previously said.

H-E-B broke ground on the campus in mid-October, a spokesperson confirmed.

Terpstra said he had accumulated the 500 acres from several sellers over the past two years.

The investor said he has been active in the Waller area for the past 15 years.

“The opportunity to pick up larger tracts of land existed and is now becoming more apparent as more and more demand is hitting the Waller area,” he said, adding that residential developers have scooped up hundreds of acres of land in the area.

Another early investor in the Waller area is Houston-based Wolff Cos., which purchased 521 acres along Highway 290 for its Beacon Hill master-planned community in 2018 and later added 43 acres. The developer later sold 270 acres to Long Lake Ltd., which is building around 870 homes on the land, and 78 acres to Houston-based Hines for industrial development.

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