Tag Archives: Princeton TX

Mayor wants to build city identity

Princeton (Texas) Mayor Brianna Chacon and yours truly are of like minds on an important subject.

We both happen to agree that the city over which she presides lacks a personality, an identity, a characteristic that defines it.

She wants to change the direction the city has been traveling for the past decade or even longer. I happen to agree wholeheartedly with her intent.

To be clear, I am going to declare that I wrote about this very thing some weeks ago. Chacon a few days ago mentioned it publicly in a State of the City speech she delivered at the Princeton school district administration building. I will not presume for an instant that she got the idea from my blog. However, it is heartening to believe that we are of like minds.

Seek an identity, Princeton | High Plains Blogger

Chacon announced her intention to enact a residential building moratorium. She wants to build up the city’s infrastructure, to bring it up to speed to provide for the thousands of people who have moved here in the past two decades.

The population today is estimated at about 28,000 residents, which is roughly 11,000 more people listed on the 2020 Census. “We grew too quickly,” Chacon told the Princeton ISD admin building crowd. Princeton has become a classic “bedroom community” comprising thousands of new homes.

Residents say they love living here, Chacon said, adding that the city needs to “give them a reason” for why they have embraced this community.

Chacon said she is excited about the city’s decision to hire Mike Mashburn as its new city manager. She believes he brings a refreshing new outlook to municipal management. It’s too early to tell whether Mashburn is the right man for the task, but I, too, am optimistic.

Chacon said the city’s identity is hidden from view. “We have been piecemealed together,” she said of Princeton’s growth history. Her intent, as I heard her say it the other day, is to craft a municipal identity for Princeton, giving it a personality.

Brianna Chacon and I are singing off the same page. Welcome aboard, Mme. Mayor.

If only I could tell her …

The more time that passes from the worst day of my life to the here and now, the fewer times I am tied up in emotional knots seeking to tell my bride something that I notice along the way.

That’s normal, I understand, as I progress along this journey without Kathy Anne by my side. But … I drive around Princeton, Texas, these days and I see things I know with absolute certainty she would want me to tell her.

I lost Kathy Anne to cancer on Feb. 3 and my life — to put it mildly — has been changed forever.

The city has completed a big street improvement project just south of the house we purchased in Arcadia Farms. Myrick Lane is now complete from Beauchamp Boulevard to Farm to Market Road 982. It’s a wide, divided thoroughfare and is much less rough of a ride than it was just six month ago. Kathy Anne would be pleased.

I keep seeing this new breakfast and lunch eatery on US 380, which Kathy Anne wished we had. I want to tell her that our son and I have eaten there several times and the chow is pretty good. That, too, would bring a smile to her face.

I notice construction continuing apace at the site of a proposed supermarket complex at the corner of Beauchamp and US 380. That would make her smile broadly.

And the city has built a park just south of our house on land donated to it by a local family. She wanted a fresh place to take Toby the Puppy for his walks. He’ll visit the park once it cools off enough for him to take it.

Hey, I get that the journey will continue to be difficult at times. There will be more of those commemorative dates I will mark without her presence by my side. However, I always have cherished the 52 years we had as a couple, 51 of them as husband and wife.

Time only will make those memories even more vivid. It also will enable me to experience the here and now with less pain at being unable to share it with her.

Then again … she knows.

Huge project on the rocks

A gigantic construction project that began along Princeton’s major thoroughfare has hit what one must describe as “not your everyday construction hiccup.”

A huge luxury apartment complex has seen work stopped for several weeks over some sort of dispute between the developer and the general contractor. The complex has arisen partly next to Wal-Mart on U.S. 380.

The Princeton Herald reported this week that construction is expected to resume next month once the developer hires another contractor. The developer says he has “identified a new team to continue the project” and is working out the details to sign them up to get cracking, the Princeton Herald has reported.

Oh, brother. I am shuddering at the prospect of this half-built complex comprising several hundred apartment units sitting there … unfinished and unoccupied for only God knows when.

I do not know this as fact, but I have to believe that City Hall’s senior management is set to move every obstacle out of the way to get the developer, Frontline Construction Management of Coppell, hooked up with a general contractor … as quickly as possible!

The developer and the former contractor got into some sort of snit that brought construction to a halt on May 19, according to the Princeton Herald. The stoppage does not mean the project is in financial peril, says the developer. Man, I hope he’s telling us the truth.

I am not going to push any panic buttons on this matter, given that I am just a chump civilian … who also pays his taxes that help pay for the city’s myriad levels of municipal government.

One of them happens to be the senior administration, which has the task of ensuring that this job gets completed.

I am one taxpaying resident who wants to see that job swarming with workers and construction equipment. The sooner the better.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Another ‘first’ sneaks up

When you lose someone with whom you do everything — and I mean that in virtually every sense of the word — then the smallest things one does take on an added emotional significance.

Those who have lost a loved one know about which I am referring.

I took a dip in our community swimming pool this evening; I had to cool off from the 98-degree heat that blanketed Princeton, Texas, today.

This was something I did routinely with Kathy Anne, my bride of 51 years and the girl of my dreams who passed away in February after a brief, but savage, battle with cancer.

I won’t go on and on about it with this blog post. It’s just one of those lessons one learns about mourning that I have just encountered. I’m quite certain the next time I decide to get wet in the pool won’t hit me quite the same way … or any other time after that.

My journey, though, continues. Yes, it’s getting a little better.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

City bustles … to what end?

As I drive through the community I call home I am filled with wonder — that to be truthful borders on awe — at all the construction activity I am witnessing.

Princeton, Texas, is a city on the move. I am still trying to wrap my arms around understanding its destination. I don’t yet know where Princeton is going or even how it intends to get there.

I know I am going to miss a project or three, but I am witnessing …

Burgeoning neighborhoods sprouting up south of my home. There’s a new development rising out of the North Texas dirt just west of the subdivision where I live; that subdivision, by the way, is now officially “closed” to new development.

Just north of a bank branch on U.S. 380 I have witnessed work crews preparing a large section of land for development. I asked a banker at said branch the other day what’s going on. I am reluctant to give you the specifics of what she said, but spoke with authority in telling me of two major businesses going onto that property.

A gigantic luxury apartment complex is rising next door to Wal-Mart just east of us.

Car washes are going up, along with storage warehouses. The Princeton Herald recently published a story about a complex of single-family rental homes being built south of me along FM 982.

Oh, and then we have all that street work along Second Street, Main Street, and next to Veterans Memorial Park in what I refer to casually as “downtown” Princeton.

The city is undergoing explosive growth. Every demographer, economist, urban planner knows what’s happening here. What I want to learn more about, though, is where it ends up.

What kind of a city will Princeton become? A commercial hub? A recreational destination? A bedroom community with lots of homes filled with families who will need travel to Plano, McKinney, Frisco, Allen to “do something”?

My wife’s recent passing has produced a spate of phone calls and other messages from real estate investors asking if I want to sell the home we purchased in February 2019. Are you kidding me?

I have to stay and watch this city continue to evolve.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

In defense of where I live

I haven’t lived for very long in Princeton, Texas, but I am hearing some buzz out there from those who aren’t impressed with the community that Princeton is becoming.

A candidate for a city council seat in another city spoke about the growth that is coming to that city.

The candidate said the community shouldn’t become another Princeton. I didn’t challenge the statement in real time. I will do so now, but just briefly.

Princeton is in the midst of a growth explosion. The 2010 census figure of 6,807 grew to 17,027 when 2020 rolled around. The latest census count is obsolete, as city officials have told me they believe the population of Princeton now is closing in rapidly on 30,000 residents.

The housing boom is fueling the growth. What is not happening, at least not yet, has been the arrival of significant new commercial or light-industrial development.

The single-family residential construction and apartment complexes that are springing up serve as an indicator that Princeton must hold some attractiveness to individuals and families looking to relocate.

I see evidence of increased commercial expansion along U.S. 380. Strip malls are being completed; they contain a variety of businesses. I have heard rumblings about a major grocery chain opening an outlet in Princeton.

I will concede one point about Princeton’s lack of community identity: It has no “downtown district.” Princeton needs a city center, a place that identifies the community, where its nearly 30,000 residents can congregate.

However, I am glad to have chosen Princeton as my new hometown. I tell folks all the time that the city is a “work in progress.”

Give it time. That’s all it needs.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Princeton is growing up

I want to share a bit of intel on the city my wife and I now call home: Princeton, Texas, is beginning to show some signs of municipal maturity.

It is growing up before our eyes.

How do I know that? I am seeing “Open” signs on windows of newly built businesses along U.S. Highway 380. A donut shop chain store is opening. So is a pizza joint a bit west on the highway. The city recently welcomed a new coffee shop. A major chain motor fuel station/store is under construction at the U.S. 380-Monte Carlo Boulevard intersection. Strip malls are being completed.

Roadwork is proceeding along several thoroughfares, with more work planned along U.S. 380.

Is this the beginning of the final phase of Princeton’s upbringing? Hardly. I hear talk of a new major grocery store on the way. We still need a movie theater and more eateries, allowing us to stay closer to home.

The maturation will take time. I can wait.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Bring on the expansion!

Days like today make me wish for all I’m worth for the Texas highway department to get cracking on the improvements it is planning for a major North Texas highway that leads me to the house.

I spent the bulk of my day at the hospital visiting with my wife as she continues her recovery from brain surgery. I left — wouldn’t you know? — at rush hour for the (supposedly) 15- to 20-minute drive home to Princeton.

Silly me …

I diverted the truck north along the Central Expressway to avoid getting caught in the stopped traffic along Texas Highway 5 near the hospital.

I made the turn at U.S. 380 in McKinney and headed east. So far so good. Then I got to Airport Drive.

Then the traffic came to a screeching stop. No one moved. An endless stream of vehicles with brake lines shining loomed ahead of me. We crept along like the proverbial snail. My 15-minute drive then turned to a 40-minute ordeal.

The Texas Department of Transportation is planning to expand U.S. 380 from four to six lanes. Then it will — eventually! — build a freeway pass around Princeton.

Yes, it was moment like what I experienced today that make me wish for the sight of those ubiquitous orange construction cones.

Bring it on! Sooner rather than later!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Development looms

My knowledge of the current city I call home is expanding rapidly, particularly as I search for convenient routes from my home in Princeton, Texas, to McKinney, where I visit my wife daily as she recovers from surgery.

We moved here almost five years ago. We found our “forever home” in a subdivision that remains a work in progress.

But my usual route to anywhere west of Princeton had taken me along U.S. 380. I have found a new route that goes a good bit south of 380 and, more importantly, away from the traffic that often clogs the highway to virtual standstill.

However, I have discovered something as I travel back and forth between home and the hospital: It is the existence of sites prepared for even more development. The area south of Myrick Lane and west toward Bridgefarmer Road is full of sites ready for slabs to be poured. I don’t know how many of them are out there. Rough guess? More than 1,000.

I can see utility lines installed. Lots have been leveled. I now await the appearance of the ubiquitous cement trucks we often see traveling hither and yon through our neighborhood. Those trucks seemingly are as ever-present as the log trucks we witnessed in the Pacific Northwest or the cattle trucks we would watch traveling through the Texas Panhandle.

To me, the cement trucks are a sign of explosive growth, which doesn’t bother me … as long as the city is planning smartly for it, which I believe is the case at City Hall.

It just is eye-popping to realize the that all that site preparation eventually is going to result in countless new residents moving to the community my bride and I have grown to love.

Don’t mess it up.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

City stays ahead of the curve

Princeton is a city on the move, given its explosive growth in leading North Texas’s population boom. It just so happens to be the fastest-growing city in the fast-growing county in Texas.

Think of that for just a moment. Think also of Collin County’s future as it grapples with the flow of migrants moving here from hither and yon. My wife and I are among those who have found our new “forever home” in Princeton and, boy howdy, we are glad to be here.

I want to mention an aspect of the city’s planning that I never thought of until just a moments ago. It is the proactive move the city made to relocate from its cramped “city hall” into a spacious new complex about a mile and a half east along U.S. Highway 380.

The city was able to purchase the property on the north side of 380 through an agreement with a developer. It then issued $20 million in certificates of obligation to build a shiny new Municipal Center that for the first time brings virtually all the city’s administrative functions under one roof.

I’ve been to the new center a time or three and have found it to be (a) beautifully designed, (b) fully functional and (c) fully occupied with city staffers doing their jobs on our behalf.

While this project was being conceived, planned and then built, the city’s population has continued to spiral upward.

The state recently posted the new “entering Princeton” signs listing the population 17,027, which is nearly triple the amount of people listed on the previous sign. The population numbers reflect the count delivered by the U.S. Census Bureau. The reality with which city administrators must deal is that the latest figure is significantly outdated. The population has far outstripped the 17,027 number posted on the latest sign

All of this is my way of congratulating the city for taking a proactive approach to serving the exploding number of people who now are calling Princeton their home.

My wife and I are delighted to be among them.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com