Tim Zielenbach/Caller-Times Developer Lewis Robinson has plans for a convention center, resort hotel, restaurants, marina and residential space on his 17 acres of seaside land in Rockport. Robinson said the $50 million development will draw conventioneers mostly from Texas, but also from outside the state.

Developments aim at baby boomers of all income brackets

Marina, tennis clubs, spa planned for Mustang Island

February 1, 2003
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Two of the biggest developments currently planned in the Coastal Bend will be geared to attract consumers ranging from the multimillionaire buying a third home to a middle-income tourist family looking for a meal of fried fish at a little bayside restaurant.

On Mustang Island, developers of a proposed golf-course subdivision with 2,500 homes expect to attract large-income buyers, as much as half from outside Texas. Many will be treating their new homes as summer or winter getaways, said Charles "Sunny" Castor, one of the developers.

In Rockport, a planned 17-acre, $50 million development called Harborfront is projected to bring in a wide variety of people with a convention center, resort hotel, restaurants, retail and residential space, a marina and yacht club. The development will draw conventioneers mostly from Texas but also will draw Winter Texans and tourists from outside the state, said Lewis Robinson, developer of Harborfront.

Courting baby boomers
The developments in Port Aransas and Rockport have at least one thing in common: They’ll rely largely on the desires of retiring baby boomers.

"You have a huge mass of people coming up in that category in the next 10 years," Robinson said. "They’re attracted to communities like this, with a reasonable cost of living, good seafood and a lot of things to do."

The development on Mustang Island would lie on 1,400 acres bisected by State Highway 361 on the outskirts of Port Aransas. It would include five village communities, a marina, two tennis clubs, two beach clubs, a spa, restaurants, walking trails, an airstrip for private jets and two 18-hole golf courses open to the public and designed by golfing legends Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.

Homes would start in the $300,000 range. Castor said he is targeting buyers with incomes that "will range from probably the low six figures to eight figures."

There are plenty of baby boomers around who are making that kind of money and would be interested in a house on Mustang Island, said Castor, who is working on the development with Craig Millard, a Florida resident who is a former president of Merrill Lynch Real Estate.

"They are inheriting their parents’ wealth and are at the peak of their earning years," Castor said. "And they are purchasing now for their future living or second home. They also are purchasing for investment."

Castor said he expects about half the homebuyers will be from Texas and the rest from the Midwest, Northeast, Southeast, Mexico, Canada and even Europe.

In Rockport, a boardwalk nearly a mile long will be the main artery of the Harborfront development. A historic and education center will offer educational tools and artifacts to tell the story of Aransas County.

Harborfront will be mostly a commercial development, about one-third of it - maybe 70 condominium units - devoted to residential, and it won’t target any particular income bracket, Robinson said. It will offer high-end restaurants and family-fare eateries, a yacht club for the boat owner and the boardwalk for people who just want to stroll.

Small-town charm
Robinson estimated 10 percent to 15 percent of customers will be local people, and the rest will be winter Texans and tourists. That’s the kind of breakdown that the rest of Rockport already sees, but Harborfront will make the town more of a year-round destination, Robinson said.

Robinson said he expects to draw mostly on the approximately 10 million Texans who live within 225 miles of Rockport.

Rockport currently can handle conventions of up to about 300 people, but Harborfront’s convention facility will house up to 1,250. There are few convention facilities around the state that will handle conventions that size and offer the coastal beauty and small-town charm Rockport possesses, Robinson said. Big cities tend to concentrate on getting conventions of at least 5,000 people to turn a profit, he said.

Robinson said he expects baby boomers to make the development hum because the Texas coast is becoming more appealing to retirees who find visiting and living on the coasts of California and Florida more expensive.

Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com