Commercial Roofing Contractors in Van Alstyne, TX

A huge land sale on the northern edge of Collin County is the latest major real estate play north of Dallas. An 861-acre tract on U.S. Highway 75 in Anna has sold for planned commercial and residential development.

Prosper-based Brown & Griffin Real Estate Advisors bought the land from homebuilder and developer Risland US Holdings LLC.

The property, which is on both sides of U.S. Highway 75, is part of the 3,000-acre Mantua community that Risland has been developing the last few years.

Risland U.S. chief operating officer Michael A. Hanschen said his firm at first had planned to sell just its highway frontage in Anna to Brown & Griffin at first.

“In the course of negotiations, the buyer expressed interest in additional commercial land, as well as the residential property surrounding Hurricane Creek Country Club in Anna,” Hanschen said. “After much consideration — and particularly given the sheer size of the Mantua project — it made sense to have more than one developer working on it.

“Risland will continue to develop the remaining nearly 2,000 acres surrounding the initial phase of Mantua located in Van Alstyne’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.”

Brown & Griffin closed the last of the property purchases on Wednesday.

“It’s a great tract,” said partner Teague Griffin. “It’s got a mile and half of frontage on both sides of 75.”

Preliminary plans for the project show sites for almost 1,200 single-family homes. There are more than 200 acres of commercial and mixed-use land along the highway.

“The city of Anna has been really good to work with,” Griffin said.

Founded in 2006, Brown & Griffin has focused on properties in Frisco, McKinney, Prosper, Celina and Gunter. The Collin County project will be the firm’s largest to date, Griffin said.

The developer’s new purchase is in an area seeing explosive growth.

Just to the north in Sherman, Texas Instruments and GlobiTech Inc are investing billions of dollars in new semiconductor plants that will employ thousands of workers.

Risland has been building its Mantua project between Anna and Van Alstyne since 2019. Before the sale to Brown & Griffin, the community was planned to include 6,000 homes.

“At present, Mantua Point phase two has utilities going in and will bring an additional 324 lots online in early 2023,” Hanschen said. “Given the great results we have had in phase one, our outlook remains extremely bullish for this development corridor.

“Our builder lineup is remaining the same for phase two, with David Weekley Homes, Highland Homes, Perry Homes and Risland Homes.”

The first phase of Mantua had 223 home sites.

Homes in the Mantua community are priced from the $400,000s to the $800,000s.

Stephan Nedwetzky’s circuitous path to becoming a barbecue joint owner in tiny Van Alstyne, about an hour north of Dallas, has been filled with pitfalls and second-guessing. The native of Dallas’s Pleasant Grove neighborhood spent his adolescent years in Rochester, New York, but after leaving the Marines in 1999, he came back home to Texas. “Being a Texan, I missed barbecue so much,” he said. He starting smoking in his backyard in Plano while running a landscaping company. After entering a barbecue competition in 2010 (even though Nedwetzky describes everything he turned in as “horrible”), he caught the bug. “It started to interfere with my landscaping business,” he said. So he shut it down to focus on barbecue.

“Everyone either laughed at me or told me I was stupid,” Nedwetzky said of the response to his decision. He wondered if everyone was right until he served what he considered the perfect brisket at a pop-up event. Will Fleischman, then-pitmaster at Lockhart Smokehouse, tried it and was impressed. “That’s still the best one that I’ve ever cooked,” Nedwetzky said. When a second Lockhart Smokehouse location opened in Plano in 2014, Fleischman asked him to come aboard. Nedwetzky worked there and at Smoke in Plano in what he calls brief stints before getting his own food truck. He called it Pit Commander Barbecue, his original competition team name. Nedwetzky chose the name because people said his long beard gave him a resemblance to Phil “Duck Commander” Robertson from the Duck Dynasty reality show. The “pit” part refers both to the old brick pit his father, who was a mason, built at his childhood home and to the mosh pit he helped whip into a frenzy while playing guitar for the heavy-metal band Lethargy during his days in Rochester. Either way, he said the name is a heck of a lot easier to pronounce than Nedwetzky Barbecue.

Pit Commander struggled to make a mark in the DFW scene, so in the winter of 2016, Nedwetzky loaded up some Texas post oak and went to Fort Myers, Florida. His sister lived there and selfishly wanted some good Texas barbecue nearby. “That’s where it really took off,” Nedwetzky said. His month-long visit turned into six months. But the draw of Texas was strong, and he returned in the summer. That’s when Yolanda Russotti, a woman he knew from Rochester, came to visit. “The first time I tried his brisket, I was like, ‘Will you marry me?’ ” she said with a laugh. She moved to Texas a month later. They married and now have a young daughter together.

The family alternated between Florida and Texas and rotated between serving barbecue and slinging barbecue pizzas under the name Texapolitan Pizza. In 2019, Nedwetzky and Russotti found what they thought would be their permanent barbecue home in the East Texas town of Murchison, but they closed their restaurant there in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nedwetzky couldn’t find a barbecue joint to hire him, so he worked for Chipotle by day and Pizza Hut by night to make ends meet. The couple headed back to Florida dejected, thinking they’d had enough of trying to succeed in Texas barbecue.

Then, out of nowhere, the State Fair of Texas emerged repeatedly in Nedwetzky’s dreams while back in Florida. “I kept waking up in the middle of the night smelling the fair,” he said. He checked the fair’s website last year and saw that it was accepting applications for new vendors. He submitted Texapolitan, and it was accepted. The couple took it as a sign to come back to Texas. After positive feedback from the fair’s organizers, the duo put a deposit down on a $30,000 wood-fired pizza oven from Italy. A month after moving back to Plano, they got word that a barbecue joint in downtown Van Alstyne had closed and the space was available. They took it and opened Pit Commander Barbecue last July.

As the couple started to build the business, they had to close the restaurant so they could serve at the fair in September. They made a daily average of 280 pizzas, topped with freshly smoked pork belly burnt ends, for 24 straight days. They credit the folks at Smokey John’s Bar-B-Que, a longtime fair vendor, for acting as their mentors and helping them through the process. Now they can’t wait for the fair to fire back up this year, but there’s plenty of barbecue to cook in the meantime.

Pit Commander Barbecue is open Thursday through Saturday for lunch. This past weekend was its most successful, with an early sellout on Saturday. I was there on Thursday for a second visit. The first, back in November, was a mixed bag of excellence and disappointment, but the restaurant was navigating a broken water line in the kitchen. This trip was far better, and I finally got to try those pork belly burnt ends from the famous State Fair pizza. They were perfectly cooked and heavily seasoned and glazed. The salt and sugar competed for dominance with the clean smoke flavor. I actually preferred the thick slice of pork belly, which Pit Commander sells as bacon brisket, an apparent homage to Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, in Fort Worth. It was more subtle than the burnt ends and seemed to melt on my tongue.

Nedwetzky is trying a few brisket suppliers to find the right quantity and quality of fat. He thought the lean side of what he was smoking this past weekend was on the dry side, and I agreed, though it was plenty tender, with a nice line of rendered fat on top. There will be a new brand of beef on the smoker this week.

Nedwetzky learned to make sausage at an old German butcher shop in Florida, and he uses those skills at the restaurant. I loved the jalapeño-cheese link, which was bursting with juice when I bit into it. Ask for it unsliced to get the most out of the experience. There were plenty of jalapeño chunks, but the spiciness was pretty tame. The bacon-wrapped jalapeños brought a bit more heat, and the bacon was nicely crisp. The tender spareribs got a hefty dose of rub and a splash of sauce, but the flavors dissipated in the foil wrap. I had planned to try the pulled pork, but it was off the menu. “We couldn’t sell a butt to save our lives,” Russotti said.

She makes all the sides, though most are Nedwetzky’s recipes. The potato salad was a bit soupy and spicy, which is how his folks like to make it. I liked the crunchy slaw, and the sweet broccoli salad was a good way to get something healthy. The mac and cheese made with creamy queso was tasty, but it was the pinto beans, in a savory broth spiked with chunks of tomatoes, onions, and brisket, that spoke to me most.

Russotti also makes all the sandwich buns from scratch. She uses a simple, Austrian-style white-bread dough to make knotted rolls. To me, it was reminiscent of a pretzel bun, though paler in color. It was perfect for the daily special of a thick, smoked brisket burger topped with American cheese, barbecue sauce, and pickles. The signature dessert is an Italian love cake, whose recipe is from Russotti’s family. To give it a Texas barbecue feel, Nedwetzky added bananas to the mix, creating Banana Love Cake and a potential rift in familial relations for messing with a recipe. I enjoyed it, though it wasn’t as sweet as I’d expected.

Van Alstyne is right in the middle of a dead zone for Texas barbecue along U.S. 75, and Pit Commander Barbecue fills the void admirably. When Nedwetzky and Russotti found the location, they hoped their joint could become a community favorite, but they knew it would take time for word to spread. Business is building slowly, but, Russotti said, “we’re still gambling on us, and we believe in what we’re doing.” If the barbecue joint flourishes, the next move will be a brick-and-mortar for Texapolitan Pizza. “Pizza is easier and the profit margins are insanely better,” Nedwetzky said, adding that making barbecue is more stressful than making pizza. So why not focus on pizza? “We’d still have to make barbecue for the pizza,” he said, so they might as well plan for both. Russotti said it’s also about building a solid foundation for their young daughter, who suffers from spina bifida. “We want to leave her something that’s going to take care of her for the rest of her life when we’re gone.” I think the community is up to the task, if only so we can keep a family of barbecue diehards in Texas and out of Florida.

Pit Commander Barbecue224 E. Jefferson, Van AlstynePhone: 972-400-0234Hours: Thursday–Saturday 11–3Pitmaster: Stephan NedwetzkyMethod: Oak in an offset smokerYear opened: 2022

As major manufacturers of semiconductor chips expand with massive projects in Sherman just north of Van Alstyne, officials in the small southeastern Grayson County city are positioning to get in on the action.

The efforts underway in the city, whose motto is “Proud Past, Bright Future,” highlights how success on the economic development front in one city can provide opportunities that spill into surrounding communities.

“We see what Sherman is doing, and we’re looking to bring in companies and industry that supports the chip manufacturing,” said Rodney Williams, executive director of Community & Economic Development for Van Alstyne.

Van Alstyne, with a population of about 6,500, has had a couple of recent wins in the city’s Cold Springs Industrial Park, where construction is underway in a second phase. A new street linking the park to County Line Road is slated to open by the end of the month.

Allen Commercial Millwork will build a roughly 44,000-square-foot facility in the industrial park. DreamLine Windows & Doors, a manufacturer of glass doors and windows, is moving its headquarters and a manufacturing facility totaling more than 100,000 square feet to 7.5 acres the company bought in the industrial park.

DreamLine may also build an events center for the city on part of the property.

“They’ve been proactive with not only wanting to bring their headquarters here, but wanting to engage with the community, which is a nice partnership,” said Tiffany Chartier, executive administrator of Van Alstyne Community & Economic Development.

In Sherman, 15 miles north of Van Alstyne, Texas Instruments broke ground in May on what will ultimately be up to four new semiconductor wafer fabrication plants at a cost of roughly $30 billion. The project by Dallas-based TI is expected to create 3,200 jobs.

In addition, GlobiTech in June announced plans to build a $5 billion plant in Sherman that’s expected to create 1,500 new jobs and turn out more than 1 million silicon wafers monthly when production begins as early as 2025.

Williams and Chartier expect Van Alstyne’s already bustling single-family and multifamily housing market to get busier with the influx of workers at the semiconductor plants going in nearby.

Year-to-date through July, the number of single-family home permits in Van Alstyne is up 24% to 290, compared to 234 issued in the same time period last year.

Van Alstyne ended last year with 399 building permits, which was up sharply from 52 in all of 2018, 109 in 2019, and 156 permits in all of 2020.

In the interview that follows, Williams and Chartier discuss the developments in Van Alstyne.

What differentiates Van Alstyne and what’s driving its growth?

Williams:Van Alstyne is in a unique place because we're exactly equidistant from Grayson County and Collin County. We're 15 minutes from the county seat of each.

McKinney has a downtown historic downtown. We have one, and Sherman has one. So it's odd how we kind of mirror. Our downtown is actually laid out like McKinney's. We're not McKinney. Obviously, we're much smaller. But in recent years, we've seen what I call a suburban flight. We've seen quite a few move-ins from as close as Prosper, definitely Dallas, Allen, and California. A lot from California. Our residential numbers are blowing up. We have a lot of ETJ (extra-territorial jurisdiction) land. We have 70 square miles of ETJ.

How is your economic development structured in Van Alstyne?

Williams: We have CDC (Community Development) and EDC (Economic Development). Since we're under 20,000 (population), our CDC is commercial and retail, quality of life projects, all in one. EDC is strictly focused on industrial manufacturing. That's our industrial park. It's an 80-acre park. We just purchased Phase II, which was 40 acres, probably two years ago. We continue to go through the park and link two roads, 3133 and FM 377, which will be a feeder straight to 75. That is just about to open, which is a big deal for us.

How will that work?

Williams: FM 377 becomes County Line Road, and County Line Road goes straight to 75. The city is working with the county to straighten it and widen it. We're hoping to move 90% of our truck traffic, and semi traffic, down that road on the south end of town. That’s why this road is really important.

What’s the tie-in with Sherman?

Williams: Initially I thought we would have land for companies coming to support the Sherman project. That (industrial park land) sold out so quickly we don't. So we are going to be buying more land. We just took out a $2.4 million bond to buy more land to build more industrial, and we are looking to bring in companies and industry that support chip manufacturing.

We are unique because our south into town has been planned well. The south end of town is zoned industrial. We're trying to keep everything relatively clean. It's not green by any means. but we also are not doing cement batch plants and rubber plants and that sort of thing. So our next phase then, phase three of our expansion, is going to be expanding the industrial park. We're trying to get land around it now. And we're going to start trying to attract those chip manufacturers.

How is your housing market?

Williams: We've got land and we've got builders building homes anywhere from $230,000 to $2 million if you want. So these thousands of employees coming in to Sherman are going to need a place to live. We think we're set up. We've got an apartment complex called The Brooks that's expanding into phase II, adding 100 units. We see ourselves as being in a good spot to help that expansion to Sherman.

Chartier: It's a great place to live, work and play. It caters to the family who wants to get away from the city and have a home on, let's say, three acres. Or if you didn't want that, then you could have a little studio loft apartment in the city. It gives you both of those, depending on what you're looking for.

What’s your strategy for bringing in companies to support chip manufacturers?

We've just started the process of figuring out who we're talking to, what their needs are, and what companies will actually support these companies. We're probably the only town between Sherman and McKinney that has industrial land. So our next purchase, which we'd like to be 30 to 40 acres at least, really set that up to benefit what Sherman's doing. They've done such a great job, we just want to kind of play off that.

What type of companies?

We don’t know (yet). Companies that provide logistics, for instance. There are raw suppliers to the chip industry that provide the raw plastic and rubber and that sort of thing. Not rubber factories, but just providers. It's hard right now because while this has been announced and talked about for a while, they haven't started building anything yet. So we're still trying to figure out the parameters of what they need, who they need, and how much of it they need.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Ranked by Population Growth Rate 2016-2020

Ranked by Total local employment

The Sulphur Springs JV team hosted Van Alstyne, Thursday night for a game at home where they traded points for most of the evening.

Van Alstyne started the game with a loss of 10 yards on a failed reverse attempt. The Wildcats defense held strong following two plays forcing a quick 3-and-out. The Wildcats started their first drive with excellent field position at the Van Alstyne 30. Even with the good field position the offense could not take advantage of the short field turning the ball over on downs.

The Panthers started their second drive moving the ball on the ground picking up multiple first downs. Van Alstyne converted a third down with a short swing pass to the right. After a nice tackle for a loss by Braxton Wall. Van Alstyne went back to the air with a short pass to the right to move the chains putting the Panthers at first and goal at the 4 yard line. Van Alstyne score on a quarterback keeper. The two point conversion was stopped in the backfield. Panthers took an early 6-0 lead.

After a nice 20 yard kickoff return by Ervine Iverson the Wildcats offense took over at their own 45. Kaden Mitchell and Iverson connection picked up two first downs taking the ball deep into Panther territory. Mitchell followed up with a first down completion to Chris Adams. Drake White crossed the plane and scored on a seven yard pass from Mitchell. Christobol Torres’ extra point was good putting the Wildcats out in front 7-6.

A bad snap on first down resulted in a Van Alstyne loss of 15. The Wildcats’ defense held strong forcing a punt. Dedrick Rose-Luke had a 30 yard return giving the Wildcats excellent starting field position again at the Panthers’ 40. The first play of the drive Jaylen Thompson carried the ball violently for a gain of 13. On the next play Mitchell went back to his favorite target Iverson but the Panthers’ secondary committed a pass interference giving the Wildcats a first down and goal at the eight. Mitchell’s pass to Colton Privit took the ball to the five. Adams scored on 4-yard pass on an out route to the left. Torres’ extra point was true again making the score 14-6.

The Wildcats’ defense gave away an excellent opportunity to hold the Panthers deep in their own territory when Van Alstyne’s reciever broke a 30-yard gain on third down. The Van Alstyne offense then steadily moved the ball down the field helped by a Wildcats personal foul. The Panthers scored on a quarterback sweep and converted a 2-point conversion to tie the game at 14-14.

The Wildcats’ special team came through again with an excellent return by Adams. Form the Panthers’ 45-yard-line the Sulphur Springs offense was able to put up enough yardage to put themselves in position for a late field goal by Torres with 13 seconds left in the half to make the score 17-14.

Van Alstyne attempted an onside kick on the opening play of the second half. The kick went out of bounds giving the Cats the ball on the Van Alstyne 41. Struggling to gain momentum on the first three downs the Wildcat offense was forced into fourth and long where Mitchell gained crucial yards with a pass to Iverson. On the next play Mitchell went back to another first down pass to Adams. A quick strike to Wyatt Watson gained 8 yards. Thompson was able to pick up a first down with a strong run. Watson scored on a reception from Mitchell on a slant through the middle. Torres continued his perfect night adding his third extra point.

On the ensuing kickoff the Panthers took the return back for 80 yards and a touchdown. Wildcats defense denied the 2 point conversion. 24-20 Wildcats lead.

Mitchell came out firing on the next possession with a 12-yard pass the Watson. The Cats’ O-Line opened up holes for Rose-Luke who took four carries in a row for 40 yards and an eventual touchdown. Again the extra point was right down the middle and Sulphur Springs extended their lead 31-20.

The Panthers’ offense stayed on the ground and was able to pick up one first down. But the Cats stopped Van Alstyne on fourth and short. Turning the ball over on downs.

Sulphur Springs picked up a first down on a defensive holding penalty. Then Mitchell came right back with pass to Iverson for 17 more yards. A holding penalty on the Cats set them back 10 yards. On the next play the Wildcats’s offense made their first mistake of the night when a pass was picked off at the 20-yard line.

Van Alstyne did not fade into the night. The Panthers consistently moved the chains culminating in a touchdown on the ground. Once again the defense denied the 2-point attempt. The Cats lead was cut to 31-26.

Van Alstyne failed for a second time on an onside kick. The Wildcats offense started on the Panthers’ 41-yard line. A combination of Thompson and Rose-Luke on the ground gained 20 yards. Rose-Luke used his offensive line to take the ball down to the 6-yard line. The steady diet on the ground continued with carries by Rose-Luke to the 2 and then Mitchell called his own number with a short run into the end zone. Torres’ fifth extra point was good extending the lead to 38-26.

The Wildcats’ defense took the ball back with a fumble recovery by Barrett Thesing. On the next play Thompson picked up 30 yards on a physical run through the middle of the Van Alstyne defense. The Cats kept the ball on the ground and ran out the clock the secure a 38-26 win.

Submitted by: Allison Libby-Thesing

SHERMAN, Texas (KXII) - Whataburger wants to double its order in Sherman.

“We’re just really excited that a successful location here has decided to double down on their success and open another branch,” said Nate Strauch, Sherman’s spokesperson.

The company wants a new location at the corner of West Travis Street and Highway 75.

“It’s a logical place, you have 1417 and 75 come together right there, so it is a logical place for something like the town center development, maybe not that big,” said Strauch.

If approved, the second location will be more than 3,000 square feet with a double drive-thru.

“I think it’ll help out a lot, especially since that one seems to be a little slow at times, and it will help spread things out throughout the city,” said Brussow.

“I think we’ve got enough Whataburger,” said Chase Monday. “I think we could use an In-N-Out burger in this area.”

Strauch said the city doesn’t choose what businesses are interested.

“We really just take applications as they come into us,” said Strauch. We do hear those complaints from people that we need more new, but it’s also good to double down on what we have.”

To some, seeing double is a good thing.

“It would kind of be nice to see another Starbucks on this side of Sherman, so that way, people from like Howe and Van Alstyne don’t have to drive up all the way into Sherman or Anna just to get some Starbucks,” said Brussow.

Most locals News 12 talked to, including off camera, said there’s one thing they’re eager for: a grocery store.

“We definitely need it,” said Monday. “I’d like to see like an H-E-B or something, or maybe even a Costco come on this side of town. I think that would be really beneficial.”

“I know people are always asking about a grocery store on that side of town,” said Strauch. “We definitely think that’s something that’s going to happen in probably within the next two years.”

Strauch said Jack in the Box is also seeking a new building at the same intersection.

“Which, of course, there’s already one around the corner, so that in theory, would replace that,” said Strauch.

Requests from both companies go before the planning and zoning commission Tuesday evening.

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