First Continental Provides $45M Construction Loan for Texas Master-Planned Community

Tellus Group has secured $45 million in construction financing to build Meraki, a 2,700-home master-planned community in Forney, Texas, a suburb just east of Dallas.

Dallas Business Journal first reported the news.  

First Continental provided the financing, which is also the largest loan in the firm’s history. The firm closed the loan through a “master-planned community fund” that specializes in lot acquisition financing. 

Jeff Corbett, executive vice president of First Continental, noted in a statement that Tellus Group has already developed several “sustainable, vibrant neighborhoods,” and he called Meraki a “transformative master-planned community.”

“This development represents a major milestone for First Continental as our largest master-planned community loan to date, and we look forward to seeing it evolve into a thriving neighborhood,” said Corbett. 

Located on 1,079 acres of land just north of U.S. Highway 80 in Forney, Texas. — a suburb of 35,000 people roughly 21 miles east of Downtown Dallas — the Meraki master-planned community will include 2,700 single-family homes, an elementary school, multiple amenity centers, several parks, and 300 acres of open space for public recreation, including the use of lakes. 

The first phase is expected to be developed by 2025, while the entire project will open in 2035. 

Andre Ferrari, chief operating officer of Tellus Group, said the partnership with First Continental will help create “a new, innovative housing development” in the fast-growing region of southeast Texas. The state’s overall population rose from 26 million to 30 million between 2012 and 2022, while the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington region saw its population increase by nearly 20 percent, from 6.6 million to 7.9 million residents, according to the state comptroller’s office.

In addition to Meraki, Tellus Group is completing master-planned communities in the Texas cities of Prosper, Celina and Anna, which will deliver a combined 5,200 lots of new single-family homes. 

Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercialobserver.com