Highland Village, TX General Contractor: Retail and Remodels

Highland Village is almost finished. The city’s history page expects about 18,000 residents at build-out, and the Census Bureau already counts 16,029 in its July 2025 estimate. Between Lewisville Lake on the north and Justin Road on the south, there’s very little raw land left. So the work here is reworking what’s already built: a second-generation suite on FM 407, or a house from the 1980s or 1990s that’s ready for its first serious remodel.

We’re about 30 minutes away, at 7950 Legacy Drive in Plano, west on the Sam Rayburn Tollway and north on I-35E. We haven’t completed a project inside the city limits yet. Our closest finished work is Calibration Brain & Body, a 4,250-square-foot wellness and media studio in Frisco, about 14 miles east. About 20 miles south, past the airport, we built out Pizza Twist in Irving, a 2,000-square-foot franchise restaurant that never closed during construction.

Nearby work: the Pizza Twist dining room in Irving, a franchise build-out MASACO phased around service hours.

Justin Road, Village Parkway, and the 407 crossroads

Two farm-to-market roads carry almost all of the city’s commerce. FM 407 is Justin Road, the city’s southern edge. FM 2499 runs north and south as Village Parkway. Where they cross, the city’s community profile describes a regional center anchored by a Walmart Supercenter on the northeast corner and a lifestyle center with an AMC IMAX and Whole Foods on the northwest.

Those two corners hold most of the square footage:

• The Shops at Highland Village. 375,000 square feet at 1701 Shoal Creek, with Whole Foods, The Cheesecake Factory, Lululemon, and AMC. The center’s leasing brochure calls it a walkable lifestyle center with a main street design, and its outdoor green, The Backyard, was reworked and finished in spring 2025.
• The Marketplace at Highland Village. A 206,926-square-foot power center at the northeast corner, with T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods, Petco, Dollar Tree, and LA Fitness, and Walmart as its shadow anchor. The city counted 29,650 vehicles a day on Justin Road there in 2024.
• The Marketplace office suites. At 2600 to 3000 Village Parkway, across from The Shops, in buildings the city pitches to office and medical tenants.

East along FM 407 the centers get smaller. Tartan Square sits at 2940 Justin Road. Village Creek fills the corner at Highland Village Road. Highland Village Town Center, at 2230 to 2250 Justin, holds Planet Fitness, Salerno’s, and Wingstop, and Highland Plaza sits at Sellmeyer Lane. Near Briarhill Boulevard, The District of Highland Village, also called Bowery Park, mixes boutique shops and offices on 14.8 acres at 120 Main Street.

Plan on second-generation space

The city’s subdivision map dates these centers: Village Creek was platted in 1986, Highland Plaza in 1988, Town Center’s first sections in 1995, the Marketplace and The Shops in 2005, and The District in 2010. Most suites on this road have had tenants before. Tour one and you’re touring someone else’s build-out: their ceiling grid, their restrooms, their ductwork, maybe their grease line.

Then ask about asbestos. The city’s permit requirements for a commercial finish-out call for an asbestos survey, along with three sets of stamped mechanical, electrical, and plumbing plans, a COMcheck energy sheet, and a TDLR letter. In a center from the late 1980s, that survey isn’t a formality. Get it before you sign the lease.

Calibration was a conversion of existing space too. We turned it into a wellness and media studio with a podcast studio, acoustic panels, a custom front desk, and a water filtration fountain, and finished in five weeks. The office suites on Village Parkway suit exactly that kind of medical and wellness build-out. For retail and service suites along Justin Road, see tenant improvements.

Nearby in Frisco: the reception at Calibration Brain & Body, a 4,250 SF conversion MASACO delivered in five weeks.

A practice that mixes retail and clinical space is a good example of how these suites get used. An optometrist needs a sales floor up front, where lit frame walls and a fitting table sell glasses, and exam rooms behind it with their own circuits and doors. That’s two kinds of space in one lease.

Illustrative: an optometry practice and eyewear shop in a retail suite, with lit frame walls, a fitting table, and an exam room behind.

From lake lots to Highland Shores: the housing eras

Highland Village incorporated in February 1963, when about 100 lakeside residents, many of them Dallas weekenders, decided to make their homes permanent, according to the city’s history page. The Handbook of Texas tracks what came next: 516 residents in 1970, 3,246 in 1980, 7,027 in 1990, and 12,173 in 2000.

The city’s subdivision map shows the waves:

• 1961 to 1963. The first plats: Lakewood Estates, Highland Lake, Clearwater, Lake Vista, and Holiday. The history page puts that early development along the shore in the northernmost part of town.
• The 1970s. Village Estates, platted in four sections from 1972 to 1977, and Highland Hills, from 1977 to 1979, mostly zoned SF-12 and SF-15.
• The 1980s. Montclair in 1980, Highland Meadows in 1983, Briarhill from 1985, and Highland Shores, a planned development whose phases were platted from 1984 through 1999.
• Since the late 1990s. Castlewood from 1996, Chapel Hill from 1999, Rolling Hills in 2000, and small infill like Wichita Estates in 2016, Ladera in 2017, and the Reserve at Chapel Hill in 2020.

The same map marks Highland Shores, Castlewood, and Chapel Hill as homeowner association neighborhoods. Most of the city’s houses are now somewhere between 25 and 50 years old. A Briarhill house from 1987 is on its original kitchen or its second one. A 1970s Village Estates house on a big lot is a candidate for an addition, if the setbacks allow it.

Permits and plan review at 1000 Highland Village Road

Building Inspections and Permits works out of the Highland Village Municipal Complex at 1000 Highland Village Road, open weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. It does plan review before a permit issues and inspections after.

Here’s the detail that catches people. Highland Village’s Code of Ordinances still adopts the 2015 International Building Code, along with the 2015 residential, plumbing, mechanical, fuel gas, energy, and existing building codes and the 2014 National Electrical Code. The building code adoption dates to Ordinance 2016-1211, passed September 13, 2016. Drawings prepared to the 2021 or 2024 editions need to be checked against the editions this city actually enforces.

What the permit application page tells you:

• In most cases an application takes up to ten business days to process, and most building permits need three complete sets of plans.
• The online portal handles only plumbing, roofing, mechanical, irrigation, and electrical permits, and only for registered contractors. First-time registration happens in person at the counter.
• The contractor registration form lists $150 for the fiscal year starting October 1, $100 if you renew by October 31, and at least $200,000 in liability insurance for builders, electricians, plumbers, and mechanical contractors.
• On a commercial finish-out, every electrical, plumbing, and mechanical subcontractor registers and pulls its own permit.

Fees follow a 2019 fee structure based on construction value. A $250,000 commercial finish-out works out to $1,833.75 for the permit, plus 65% of that for plan review, about $3,026 together. A re-inspection is $75.

“Permits are not valid until they have been paid for, picked up, and placed on the job site.”

From the city’s permit duration rules.

Construction has to start within 180 days of issue. Inspections are booked by phone at (972) 899-5093: call before 9 a.m. and you’re on that morning’s schedule, call before noon and you’re on the afternoon run.

State accessibility review over $50,000

That TDLR letter on the finish-out checklist comes from state law. Under TDLR’s accessibility rules, any project whose total estimated cost reaches $50,000 gets registered with the state and its construction documents reviewed. Work below that line must comply with the Texas Accessibility Standards anyway.

Five sign-offs on one CO form

The city’s certificate of occupancy request costs $40. It asks for the suite’s total square footage and three yes or no questions: industrial waste discharge to the sewer, hazardous materials, and outside storage. Then come signature lines for Public Works, the Fire Department, the Health Department, and Code Enforcement, before final approval for issuance. Any one of those can hold your opening.

The fire marshal’s third-party step

The Fire Marshal’s office reviews fire alarm, sprinkler, hood, and hazmat plans, and it doesn’t charge for its own review. Since May 1, 2021, its plan submittal rules send new sprinkler systems, fire alarms, monitoring, and special hazard systems to an approved third-party engineer first, and the contractor pays that firm directly, then sends the stamped plans to the Fire Marshal by email or to its office at 1200 Highland Village Road. Sprinkler alterations under 19 heads and kitchen hood suppression skip the third party and go straight to the Fire Marshal Division. The department’s Fire Prevention Division also handles certificate of occupancy inspections.

Restaurants go through a contracted sanitarian

Food has its own rules. The city’s food service ordinance requires plans and specifications for any new, extensively remodeled, or converted food establishment before work begins: layout, mechanical plans, finish materials, and the make and model of fixed equipment. A chief sanitarian working under contract to the city approves them and inspects again before opening. The first food permit is $225, then $200 a year. Afterward, the city’s health inspections score kitchens from 0 to 100.

MASACO’s work in Irving: Pizza Twist, a 2,000 SF restaurant build-out phased around service hours.

At Pizza Twist we installed a full kitchen and its utility connections in six to eight weeks while the restaurant kept serving. Taking over an old restaurant on Justin Road? See restaurant construction for how we stage kitchen work around a business that has to keep running.

Lakefront lots and the 537-foot line

Building near the water adds a federal layer. The city’s floodplain page says the spring rains of 2015 pushed Lewisville Lake above the 100-year flood stage, bringing water up to the doorsteps of many lakeside homes. Its answer is ordinance 2011-1100: no development in the FEMA flood hazard area, and development near it raised at least 2 feet above the flood elevation.

The same page notes that every property touching the shoreline carries a Corps of Engineers flowage easement up to 537 feet above sea level. The Corps’ adjacent landowner rules bar anything built for human habitation below that line, require written approval from the District Engineer for other structures, and allow no fill that raises the ground above the contour. Applications need plans with finished floor elevations and a plat showing the government boundary. If you own one of the original 1960s lake lots, we pull your survey before we sketch anything.

Home remodeling in Highland Village, TX

The city’s permit list is broad. Additions, kitchen expansions, garage conversions, new windows and doors, shower pans, siding, water heaters, and patio covers all need permits. A residential remodeling permit is $200 plus half that for plan review, and additions run $0.48 per square foot. Accessory buildings over 200 square feet must meet the zoning ordinance’s masonry rules.

What we see in houses from these decades:

• Kitchens. If a late-1980s Briarhill or Highland Shores kitchen still has its first cabinets, kitchen remodeling there tends to mean new cabinets and counters, under-cabinet and ceiling lighting, and, where the framing allows, a wider opening into the family room.
• Baths. Older primary baths get a walk-in shower, and the city wants a permit for a new shower pan. Our bathroom remodeling page covers the scope.
• Family rooms. Built-ins, new trim, and refinished floors make a 1990s room feel current without moving a wall.

Illustrative: a 1990s family room updated with a built-in window seat, flanking shelves, new trim, and refinished floors.

When the kitchen, baths, and floors all need work at once, run it as one whole-home remodel, on one permit set and one schedule. One round of dust instead of three. One more thing to settle early:

“Deed restrictions and HOA requirements may supersede City requirements.”

From the city’s building permit FAQ.

The city doesn’t enforce HOA rules, so in Highland Shores, Castlewood, or Chapel Hill, the association’s approval is a separate step on its own calendar. We build it into the schedule.

Three places every Highland Village local knows

Lewisville Lake

The lake is why the city exists. The Corps of Engineers began building Lewisville Dam in 1948, with Dallas and Denton helping pay for it, and the lake was created when the dam was completed in 1955. At conservation pool it covers 23,280 acres with 233 miles of shoreline. Highland Village holds a stretch of the south shore, and its first subdivisions were platted within a decade of the dam’s completion.

Looking west across Lewisville Lake at sunset from a flight bound for DFW Airport in July 2015.

Copperas Branch Park and Pilot Knoll

Highland Village runs two parks on Corps land, both on the Corps’ list of leased parks. Copperas Branch Park covers about 75 acres with a boat ramp, a beach, and a swim area. Pilot Knoll Park runs 65 to 85 acres depending on the lake level, with 55 RV and tent sites and equestrian trails.

A shoreline picnic area on Lewisville Lake west of I-35E, photographed in November 2005.

Inland, Doubletree Ranch Park sits on part of the ranch owned by Robert DuVall, the city’s first mayor, and the city says outlaw Sam Bass was rumored to hide out in the area’s trees and hills.

The A-train station

The platform in the photo heading this page belongs to the Highland Village/Lewisville Lake station. It sits at 2998 N. Stemmons Freeway, on I-35E at Garden Ridge Boulevard, technically inside Lewisville. Highland Village voters joined Denton and Lewisville in approving a half-cent sales tax for regional transit, and the A-train now links those cities to DART.

How a Highland Village project runs with MASACO

Our process page lays out the six steps every job follows, here or anywhere.

1. Understand. We visit the suite or the house and go through the lease, the HOA covenants, or the lake survey with you.
2. Visualize. 3D renderings come before any number.
3. Plan. A fixed-scope proposal broken out by trade, allowances listed, drawn to the 2015 codes the city enforces.
4. Execute. One project manager, a written photo update every week, and every permit, third-party fire review, health review, and TDLR filing tracked by us.
5. Deliver. You get the close-out package: as-built drawings, permits, inspection records, the CO, and every warranty.
6. Support. We’re still a phone call away once you’ve moved in.

MASACO is woman- and minority-owned, led by Sara Bannat, Founder and CEO, and Mahmoud Abu Saad, COO, and we’re a Goldman Sachs Preferred Vendor. Looking for a general contractor in Highland Village, TX, for an eyewear shop in The Marketplace, an office on Village Parkway, or a Highland Shores house that’s due? Book a consultation. Send us the listing sheet, the HOA letter, or photos of the room, and you’ll get renderings and a written scope back.

Building in Highland Village: what to know.

Highland Village grew from 516 residents in 1970 to 12,173 in 2000, so most of its houses sit in subdivisions platted from the 1970s through the 1990s, like Village Estates, Briarhill, and Highland Shores, after the first lake lots of the early 1960s. Commercial space lines Justin Road (FM 407) and clusters where it meets FM 2499, home to The Shops at Highland Village and The Marketplace. Building Inspections and Permits at 1000 Highland Village Road issues permits and certificates of occupancy under the 2015 international codes the city has adopted.

Highland Village neighborhoods and districts.

• Highland Shores
• Briarhill
• Castlewood
• Chapel Hill
• Village Estates
• Highland Hills
• Montclair
• Clearwater
• Lakewood Estates
• Rolling Hills
• The Shops at Highland Village
• The Marketplace at Highland Village
• The District of Highland Village
• Highland Village Town Center

Highland Village on the map.

Open Highland Village, TX in Google Maps