Cross Creek Ranch has won the 2009 BALA Gold award for “Best Community Facility.” Contest judges were impressed with Cross Creek Ranch’s attention to detail such as the authentic East Texan design, high tech fitness and welcome center and amenities that supported the community and environmental awareness.

For 26 years running, Professional Builder and the NAHB Design Committee have teamed up to host the housing industry’s most esteemed design competition: the Best in American Living Awards. BALA winners are judged on market success as well as design excellence, and therefore serve as the ultimate barometer for what Americans are looking for in homes of all sizes, types and price ranges.  For more information, please click here.

Read More...

Cross Creek's innovative site design and integrated natural systems are setting a standard for community developers all over the U.S.  Sustainable landscape architecture means "Listening to the Land", which is precisely how the Cross Creek Team approached this project from the beginning. The following story was published in the December issue of EcoStructure Magazine:

The sustainability movement is turning U.S. building-design norms on their head, in ways that go beyond LEED ratings and net zero energy buildings. The most fundamental principals of landscape architecture and site design—analyzing the site and environment to holistically integrate it with development—are beginning to resonate with developers, investors, and corporate users like never before. Why is the U.S. real estate industry now warming up to ideas long practiced in Europe and Asia? Because it simply has become cheaper and smarter to do so.

Several factors driving this trend are embodied in a growing number of projects completed or under way across the United States. First, the sustainability movement has created a demand-premium for eco-conscious space. Not only are LEED-rated structures leasing and selling faster, but so are facilities with sustainable features that extend outside the building such as heat-absorbing green roofs, water-cleansing bioswales, creek-side parks that previously might have been buried under culverts, and other techniques that turn natural systems into project amenities.

Read More...