Commercial Roofing Contractors in Aubrey, TX

AUBREY — At the Aubrey Area Museum, exhibits describe key events in the city’s history: its founding in 1867 by Alabama transplant L.N. Edwards, the locals who fought in World War II and the devastating tornado that swept through in 1918, destroying two churches but sparing the historic First Baptist Church.

A look at Aubrey in images

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Aubrey faces change once again, brought not by a storm but by an economic shift. The arrival of major master-planned communities just outside the city limits could conscript the small city into the ranks of North Texas suburbs.

Silverado already has about 1,500 homes and could have as many as 5,000. Sandbrock Ranch will have about 2,400 homes. Two other master-planned communities, ArrowBrooke and Aspen Meadows, are also nearby.

Locals have forged bonds in places like Silverado, where residents have built their own tight-knit community 10 minutes down the road. Aubrey residents also welcome the growth big developments bring.

Still, they want to preserve their identity – what restaurant owner Krys Murray calls a “quintessential small town.”

“We want to have growth for our citizens and provide those services that they need,” interim city administrator Charles Kreidler said. “But we also want to keep that small-town feel, which is why most of the residents who live in the city limits of Aubrey moved here in the first place.”

Aubrey is no stranger to change. When cotton prices tanked starting in the 1920s, locals shifted to planting peanuts, which thrived in the area’s sandy soil. Drought and high costs eventually drove peanut farmers out of business, but that same soil drew horse ranchers and equestrian enthusiasts to Aubrey, and it’s now known as “Horse Country U.S.A.”

As its economy transforms again, Aubrey is moving beyond its origins as a farming community. Still, city leaders plan to take advantage of growth in a way that preserves its small-town history.

A 2015 master plan outlines a vision for a larger downtown, including a central square or larger public park and new space for businesses that would match Aubrey’s current buildings. That includes new buildings on Main Street that would fit with the existing historic structures as well as repurposing an old peanut-drying facility to put in a restaurant, museum or mixed-use space.

The planning process for the new downtown should start around the beginning of 2023, Kreidler said in an email.

The school district is expected to grow by more than 8,900 students in the next 10 years. In May, voters in the district approved $385.9 million in bonds that includes funding for three new elementary schools, a second middle school, additions to the high school and new athletic facilities.

“It’s very exciting to be in a district that is growing,” Superintendent David Belding said. But he noted that the district wants to keep class sizes small, which means employing enough teachers, instructional aides and support staff to go along with the new facilities.

D.R. Horton, which developed Silverado, set aside land for an elementary school that opened in 2020. That’s something Jackie Fuller, a retired Aubrey schoolteacher and the namesake of the school, would like to see happen more often.

“Developers make tons of money on things like that, so let them be a little responsible and provide space for the schools,” said Fuller, who now heads the Aubrey Historical Society and leads tours at the museum.

The growth could attract a chain grocery store near the city, Kreidler said, that would be larger than the existing options.

New residents also support existing businesses. Murray welcomes the boost to traffic at her restaurant, World Famous MOMS, and she thinks Aubrey can keep its identity as it grows.

“We’ve got one foot in the past and one foot in the future, and where we’re sitting now I feel really, really good about,” Murray said.

AUBREY AT A GLANCE

Population: Estimated 6,490 as of July 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau

Location: 49 miles northwest of downtown Dallas

Racial demographics: 79.4%, white, 9.1% Black, 6.8% Hispanic, according to U.S. Census Bureau

Median household income: $64,777 as of 2020 to U.S. Census Bureau

Median existing home sale price: $426,000, according to Redfin

Median new construction sale price: $372,729, according to Residential Strategies

Annual single-family home starts: 465 through second-quarter 2022, according to Residential Strategies

School district: Aubrey ISD

Master-planned communities: D.R. Horton’s Silverado could one day have as many as 5,000 homes, interim city administrator Charles Kreidler said. Sandbrock Ranch has plans for 2,400 homes, and Aspen Meadows plans for 312. ArrowBrooke does not list the number of homes on its website.

Retail: Aubrey’s businesses are clustered along U.S. 377, including restaurants, auto shops and retail. There are also local businesses in the historic downtown, including Murray’s World Famous MOMs.

Festivals and events: Aubrey holds an annual peanut festival in the fall, commemorating the industry that was once critical to the local economy.

Infrastructure projects: Improvements are in the works for local roadways, including U.S. 377 and FM-2931. The city has plans for new water infrastructure, including an expansion of its wastewater treatment plant and connection to the Upper Trinity Regional Water system.

History lesson: Famous singer Louise Tobin was born in Aubrey in 1918. She is the granddaughter of Aubrey’s founder, L.N. Edwards. Tobin toured Texas, the nation and the world with various jazz bands and orchestras. She’s also credited with discovering Frank Sinatra and recommending him to her husband, trumpeter Harry James, who hired Sinatra and kickstarted the singer’s career.

Meet the next North Texas boomtowns

As Dallas-Fort Worth grows, smaller cities in every direction are attracting the attention of builders and new residents. Here are some of the ones to watch.

North Texas communities represent some of the top-selling developments in the nation, according to a new report.

RCLCO, a Maryland-based real estate consulting firm, released the 2022 results from its semi-annual survey showing the 50 top-selling master-planned communities in the nation.

Three North Texas communities in fast-growing exurb communities made the list: D.R. Horton’s Silverado in Aubrey, with 820 sales in 2022; Sessions Development and PMB Capital’s Wildcat Ranch in Crandall, with 462 sales; and Hillwood Communities’ Union Park in Little Elm, with 453 sales.

Silverado was the top-selling community in Texas last year, and it ranked third on RCLCO’s list in the first half of 2022. Sales of homes in Silverado doubled from 2021 to 2022, RCLCO found. As of August, Silverado had about 1,500 homes, according to the city of Aubrey.

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Residents have been drawn to Silverado for its relatively low price points, the location and the community, The News reported in August.

“There’s a strong sense of community in Aubrey, the city limits, and there’s a strong sense of community that’s somewhat different in Silverado,” Charles Kreidler, Aubrey’s interim city administrator and a former Silverado resident, said last summer.

Nineteen Texas communities were on the list, and 13 of them were in the Houston area, which was the top-performing metro area in the survey. Communities in El Paso and Austin also ranked. Sales in Texas communities represented nearly 30% of all the sales in the survey.

The top-selling community in the nation last year was The Villages in central Florida with 3,923 sales, followed by Sarasota, Fla.’s Lakewood Ranch with 1,846 sales.

New home sales for the 50 top-selling communities declined by 20% in 2022 compared with 2021 because of lower sales volume due to rising interest rates and affordability issues, according to RCLCO.

“However, master-planned communities have historically increased their overall market share in times of economic turmoil, as consumers perceive that the quality of master-planned communities can provide a level of insulation from broader market trends,” said RCLCO principal Karl Pischke in a statement. “As such, optimism from [master-planned community] developers remains, even if additional softness in the market might be expected in the near-term.”

The large presence of Texas communities among the nation’s top performers shows the optimism of homebuilders and developers in the state. In a report released in December, the National Association of Realtors ranked the D-FW and San Antonio areas among its top 10 real estate markets to watch in 2023, all of which were in the South.

AUBREY — Truthfully, Keith Ivy still isn’t sure what drew him to Aubrey. The question posed to him in his eighth season as head coach mirrors questions asked of him when he took the job in 2014.

Sure, he has ties to the area. He played football for his father, James, at Sanger, which is just about a 20 minute drive from Aubrey. His wife, Amber, is from Pilot Point, 10 minutes north, and he graduated from UNT, just 20 minutes southwest.

But Aubrey had posted back-to-back two-win seasons before he arrived, and had only made the playoffs six times in its 40 years as a program.

He still gets asked, ‘Why Aubrey?’

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“I don’t know. I probably should have been psych tested when I originally started looking at this job,” Ivy said with a laugh.

But as Ivy and his players now drive into the campus, they’re greeted with blue and red streamers tied to every parking sign. Hay bales line the roads leading up to the school. One, on Route 377, across from Aubrey Parts Plus auto shop, reads “Chap Pride” on one side, and the football team’s logo on the other. Another, on the school’s front lawn, reads “Go Chaps.”

The front doors of the fieldhouse have been marked up: Playoffs 2021, on one window pane. Aubrey Proud, on another.

Good things are happening at Aubrey. The type of things that have never happened before. Things that may best serve as an answer for Ivy, when he’s asked why he chose Aubrey way-back-when.

For the first time in program history, Aubrey (12-1) will play in a fourth-round playoff game. It’ll be against a familiar foe, too. Aubrey will play District 4-4A Div. II rival Celina (11-1), a six-time state champion, on Friday at 7:30 p.m. at Denton’s Apogee Stadium in the 4A-II Region II finals.

“They wanted to go somewhere that no Aubrey team has ever gone before,” Ivy said. “And they’ve done it.”

Aubrey’s program did not move from zero to 100 miles per hour overnight. It’s more of a team that had been cruising at a steady pace, but is finally clicking into fourth gear. After finishing 1-9 in Ivy’s first year, Aubrey has qualified for the playoffs in seven consecutive seasons, won six playoff games in that stretch, and finished 10-3 in 2020.

But a regional final had eluded the Chaparrals since its football program began play in 1974. Aubrey had made it to the regional semi-finals three times — in 2006, 2009 and 2010 — but lost each trip. Last year’s ended with a 28-14 loss to Graham. Graham went on to beat Celina in the regional final.

“They took out all of us,” Ivy said.

But, Ivy said, the returning players packed the school’s weight room the next day after the loss.

“Pretty much, the day after, it was go-time,” junior Jacob Palladino said.

“The juniors, we felt like next year was going to be our year,” junior running back Braylon Colgrove said.

Colgrove has keyed Aubrey’s Wing-T offense that’s third among Dallas-area 4A teams in total yards per game (432.23) and first in rush yards per game (362.15). He leads all area 4A running backs with 2,108 yards and 31 touchdowns.

Aubrey’s defense — which started the season with an entirely new secondary — is the fastest Ivy has had. It’s given up just 14.15 points per game, the third-best mark among area 4A teams. A pass rush of Palladino (13 sacks) and junior Jett Runion (11 sacks), combined with junior Everson Strain’s 72 tackles, seven pass breakups and five interceptions at the safety position created a formidable unit that held opponents to a touchdown or less five different times.

Aubrey won its first three playoff games by a combined score of 139-13. Its regional semifinal game against Monahans ended 42-7.

“It means the world, and it’s great and everything,” Palladino said. “In our minds, we enjoyed it that Friday, we enjoyed that win. And then almost immediately after, we were like, ‘It’s on to Celina.’”

Palladino remembers when he played pee wee football, or even when he was in middle school, he would attend Aubrey games on Friday nights. He’d marvel at the players. Although they weren’t that much older than him, they seemed closer to celebrities than peers.

“They were almost like the Dallas Cowboys to me,” he said.

Aubrey posted back-to-back eight-win seasons when Palladino was in eighth and seventh grade. Before that? A smattering of one-win, two-win and four-win seasons. Nothing near what his own team has now accomplished.

“Now to be on this team, to help lead this team,” Palladino said. “That’s a dream come true.”

The community has supported it, too — beyond the hay bales and streamers. More spectators attend games. More children — like Palladino once was — are watching.

“It’s like homecoming every week,” Colgrove said.

Maybe that’s why Aubrey — a small school, as Palladino said, with a nostalgic Friday Night Lights air, as Ivy said — is now among the places-to-be in North Texas.

“It’s been just an unbelievable run,” Ivy said. “To see where this thing has started, and where we’re at right now.

“At this point, I don’t see any complacency or anybody wanting to stop soon. Why not us, at this point?”

***

The build up to 2021

Related:5 things to know ahead of the Celina-Aubrey 4A-II regional final game

The North Texas residential community Silverado in Aubrey was the top seller of homes in Texas for the first half of the year.

Credit: Jake Dean/Dallas Business Journal

DALLAS — This story originally appeared on the Dallas Business Journal

The North Texas residential community Silverado in Aubrey was the top seller of homes in Texas for the first half of the year and third-highest in the nation, according to a new report.

Silverado, being developed by Arlington-based D.R. Horton, earned the third-place rank with 599 sales through the first half of 2022, according to the mid-2022 “50 Top-Selling Master-Planned Communities” report compiled by RCLCO Real Estate Consulting.

The 599 home sales was a 200% increase over the 200 homes sold in Silverado in the first half of 2021. It came during a period when many builders are seeing year-over-year sales declines.

Four communities in North Texas made the top 50.

Wildcat Ranch in Crandall ranked 27th nationally, with 276 home sales in the first half of the year. That’s down 3% from the 285 sold in the community midway through last year. Sessions Development and PMB Capital are building Wildcat Ranch.

Magnolia Ranch in Royse City ranked 32nd nationwide, with 255 home sales. The development by D.R. Horton fell by 15% from 301 home sales in the first half of last year.

Union Park, a Hillwood Communities development in Little Elm, ranked 42nd, with 227 home sales in the first half of this year. That’s down 19% from the 279 sold in the initial six months of 221.

Texas and Florida dominate in home sales at the halfway point of 2022, the RCLCO report says. Florida grabbed about 36% of sales among ranked communities while Texas logged 34%.

Nationwide, sales in the ranked communities fell 18% at mid-2022 compared to the first six months of 2021.

The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area had 13 master-planned communities in the top 50, which is more than any other metro area. Sunterra, in the Houston suburb of Katy, ranked eighth, with 450 homes sold in the first half of 2022. The community is being built by Land Tejas/Starwood Land.

The Houston metro area also topped the rankings for total sales, with 3,430, which totals almost 20% of all master-planned community homes bought.

The Villages, a community in Central Florida, was the top-seller in the country with an estimated 1,500 sales. Lakewood Ranch, in Sarasota, Fla., claimed second place, with 1,026 sales.

Nationwide, supply chain issues and inadequate new home inventory have continued to cause problems for builders, and price increases and interest rate hikes have begun to impact traffic from potential buyers in recent months, according to the RCLCO report.

Home builders in North Texas saw increasing cancelations in the first half of the year.

The percentage of home sales that fell out of contract last month in the Dallas area was 19.9% — a full 5% higher than the national average, according to a Redfin study. In the Fort Worth area, 18.9% of contracts fell through.

Nationally, the average price among all new single-family homes is up 15% since mid-year 2021, and over 40% since April 2020 and the depths of pandemic pricing.

New home prices in DFW last month broke $500,000 for the first time, according to a HomesUSA report. The three-month moving average of new home sale prices in June was a record $501,327 compared to $486,172 in May. The average new home price in DFW is up over $85,000 since June 2021, an increase of over 20% year-over-year.

Despite slowing of new sales, many developers remain optimistic since higher prices have meant that they’ve been able to meet budget despite fewer sales, the RCLCO report says.

The fundamentals underlying new home demand for the longer term remain strong, according to the report.

“Specifically, as millennial households continue to enter their prime family formation years in large numbers, a life stage that traditionally precedes single-family home ownership, long-term demand for single-family housing is likely to remain strong,” the report says. “Furthermore, these strong demand projections brought on by demographic tailwinds are coupled with a housing environment that continues to be undersupplied.”

While a recession may result from the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to combat inflation, the housing market is not oversupplied the way it was in 2008, when home sales fell 66%.

“If a there is a recession, as some economists are predicting, it’s important to remember that on average, in past recessions new home sales declined by less than 10%,” the report says.

A Union Pacific freight train went off its tracks Wednesday morning, sending eight freight cars within feet of a row of homes in the Denton County city of Aubrey.[[504105021,R]]

In a statement to NBC 5 Union Pacific said a locomotive and six rail cars derailed upright while another seven overturned at about 9:30 a.m.

Video from Texas Sky Ranger showed at least eight rail cars piled up along the tracks that split Pecan Street east of South Main Street -- many of the rail cars were off of their wheels.

Throughout the day, dozens of people stopped to take pictures of the wreckage, or just to see it for themselves.

"Biggest thing that's gone on around here in a while," said Aubrey resident Daniel Smith.

Some of the cars appeared to have missed hitting one of the homes on Pecan by only a few inches. Debris from the derailment does appear to have contacted a garage detached from a home on the north sided of Pecan.

Rick Huckabee, who lives at that home not far from the tracks, says he heard what sounded to him like an earthquake. He was working in his shop, and felt the rumble of the derailment.

"Whole lot of rattling and shaking," said Huckabee. "I've never been in a major earthquake, but I think that's what it would sound like."

The derailment occurred near a switch, but Union Pacific has not yet determined what caused train to jump the tracks and is investigating the incident.

The latest news from around North Texas.

Photos: Derailed Train Nearly Hits Home in Aubrey

"We are working to quickly and safely clear the mainline. An inspection team will look at the tracks and make any necessary repairs," Union Pacific said in a statement.

Union Pacific said no injuries were reported and there were no hazardous materials on the train. Heavy machinery was brought to the scene to help with the removal of the derailed cars, which began Wednesday afternoon. The rail operator says once those cars are removed and the track is repaired, rail service could resume by Thursday evening.

Road Closures:

377 & Stewart (south of Krugerville) New Hope Road & Cortes railroad crossing (Aubrey) South Main Street & Spring Hill Road railroad crossing (Aubrey) Plum Street railroad crossing (Aubrey) Elm Street railroad crossing (Aubrey)

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