Murphy is small, and it’s almost full. The city covers about 5.7 square miles of south Collin County, and its 2026 Master Plan counts just 3 percent of that land as vacant. So most construction here is rebuilding. A suite on FM 544 changes tenants. A restaurant moves into a former shop. A 2004 kitchen finally comes out.
That’s the real job of a general contractor in Murphy, TX, and it’s ours: commercial build-outs first, home remodeling right behind. Our office on Legacy Drive in Plano is about 30 minutes away, roughly 20 miles by the Dallas North Tollway and the George Bush Turnpike.
We haven’t completed a project inside Murphy’s city limits, and we’d rather say so up front. Our closest finished work is about seven miles north, in Allen. Fade & Style Barber Shop went from a bare 1,500-square-foot shell to opening day in six weeks. That happens to be a suite size Murphy’s shopping centers are cut into.
The Corridor: two miles of FM 544 retail
Murphy’s commerce runs east and west on FM 544. In 2022 the city branded the two-mile stretch between McCreary Road and Dublin Road as The Corridor. The Master Plan dates most of that development to 1998 and later, after the George Bush Turnpike opened nearby, with a Starbucks among the first major tenants. The road now carries nearly 55,000 cars a day. And it’s a TxDOT road, not a city street, which matters the moment a project touches a driveway.
The anchors are big boxes. Murphy’s economic development corporation lists Walmart, Lowe’s, Sprouts, and 24 Hour Fitness, plus more than 60 places to eat. Murphy Marketplace, on East FM 544, is the Sprouts-anchored center a grocery REIT bought in 2016 as a 218,598-square-foot property. It’s still growing. In January 2025 its owner registered a new 63,554-square-foot one-story shell building at 223 to 225 East FM 544 with the state, and a 20,370-square-foot tenant finish-out inside it is scheduled to wrap up in December 2026.
The east end just changed. H-E-B opened on July 22, 2026 at the southwest corner of FM 544 and McCreary Road, twenty-one months after groundbreaking. The company’s state filing described a 122,175-square-foot store, plus a fuel station and car wash.
Murphy Road crosses FM 544 in the middle of town. North of that intersection it carried the state route number FM 2551 until February 2019, when TxDOT turned roughly two miles inside the city over to Murphy. City Hall, the community center, and C.A. McMillen High School all front it.
In Murphy, second-generation space is the norm
One number shapes nearly every commercial job here. The Master Plan, drawing on the city’s 2025 economic development report, puts Murphy at 1.72 million square feet of retail and office space, about 98.5 percent occupied, with roughly 24,000 square feet empty citywide. That year brought 26 remodels and finish-outs and only 16,458 square feet of new commercial space.
So if you lease here, you’re probably inheriting somebody’s old build-out.
Sometimes that’s a gift: a restroom, a water heater, and a ceiling grid you can keep. Sometimes it’s a layout that fights you. A 2020 job in Murphy Marketplace, registered with the state’s accessibility program, added a demising wall and reworked the storefront to split one 4,088-square-foot suite into a front space and a rear space. At the northwest corner of FM 544 and Murphy Road, the Walgreens that stood there for nearly two decades gave way to three tenants: Panera Bread, Spectrum, and Freebirds World Burrito.
Murphy Crossing, south of FM 544 and east of Murphy Road, shows the usual grain. The city’s opportunity district study counts about 44,000 square feet in five buildings there, divided into 29 tenant spaces. That averages out near 1,500 square feet, the size of Fade & Style.
Read the suite rules before anyone draws a wall. Murphy’s commercial construction reference guide has the owner submit a suite layout with the permit, won’t accept alphanumeric suite numbers, and still assigns addresses to “ghost suites” created when two spaces are combined. Every suite needs its own entry and exit, and a future suite has to get them before a certificate of occupancy is issued.
The tenants match that grain. So far in 2026, the city’s certificate of occupancy list includes a nail salon and a medspa on West FM 544, a music school, a coffee and tea shop, and a pizza carryout. Jewelers, salons, studios, clinics: compact suites where cases, plumbing, and lighting all compete for the same few feet. That’s the work on our retail and salon build-outs page.
Murphy permits, plan review, and the CO
Everything goes through one front door. Murphy’s Permits and Inspections work sits with the Customer Service Center at 206 North Murphy Road, which takes applications and schedules building and health inspections. The city’s reference guide adds a detail we like:
“Throughout your project, Customer Service will correspond with one person (the General Contractor) on your team.”
From the City of Murphy’s commercial construction reference guide.
Codes first. Murphy adopted the 2021 international codes and the 2020 National Electrical Code, effective March 1, 2024, and any application filed on or after that date has to comply. Some of the city’s older printed checklists still cite the 2015 editions, so go by the adoption page.
Commercial applications go in electronically, with the certificate of occupancy application and drawings, once civil plans are approved. Building plan review runs alongside site plan review by Planning and Zoning and Public Works, and alongside Fire and Health review. The reference guide says to allow 14 business days for the first round of comments. Fees are due at submittal and aren’t refundable. Texas law then gives the city 45 days to issue or deny the permit, or 30 days after it sends comments requiring revisions.
A few Murphy specifics we plan around:
- New commercial buildings get a preconstruction meeting before the permit is released.
- The general, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors must all be registered with the city before a permit can issue, and registration renews every year.
- A shell building needs its own CO before a finish-out inside it is accepted for review.
- Renovations and demolitions need proof of an asbestos survey, and projects over $50,000 need proof of TDLR accessibility registration.
- Inspections requested by 2 p.m. go on the next business day’s schedule, and frame, electrical rough, mechanical rough, and plumbing top-out are inspected together. Canceling takes a live phone call before 9 a.m.
Your CO carries the project name
Murphy issues the certificate of occupancy under the project name on the permit application. The guide is blunt about changing it:
“Any name changes during the duration of the project will delay progression and is subject to a fee.”
The business owner fills out the CO application completely, or it’s rejected. Signs run on their own track: sign permits are accepted only after the building permit is issued, and the CO comes only after the sign is complete and inspected. The CO itself issues once all building and fire inspections pass. Settle the name and order the sign early.
Cafes, restaurants, and fire review
Murphy runs its own Health Division, which does plan review, permitting, and inspections for restaurants, grocery stores, schools, and daycares. Every food service establishment needs a Food Service Permit, good for one year and not transferable to a new owner. The food service application goes in with your building permit, and health inspections are booked through Customer Service. On the city’s public score list, “CO” next to a new restaurant means it met the initial health inspection requirements to open; everyone else is scored on a 100-point scale from random inspections during the year.
Fire Marshal Scott Eckstein’s Fire Prevention office enforces the 2021 International Fire Code with local amendments adopted in December 2023. The ones that shape a build-out:
- A Type I hood over any commercial cooking appliance that produces grease vapors, with fuel gas and power interlocked to the extinguishing system
- Addressable devices on any new fire alarm system
- A key box wherever the fire code official requires one
- Sprinklers in retail (Group M) fire areas over 6,000 square feet
Sprinkler and alarm plans go to Customer Service for fire review before the framing inspection, and fire inspections are booked with the Fire Department directly.
Planning a cafe or kitchen on FM 544? Start with our restaurant construction notes.
From acreage lots to 2000s subdivisions
Murphy’s houses tell a short, fast story. By 1970 the old farm town had dwindled to 136 people. The first subdivisions, Skyline Acres and Willow Wood Estates, came in the early 1970s, and the city wrote its first master plan in 1973 to prepare for what Mayor Tom Clevenger called “extreme and traumatic growth.” In the 1980s families came for lots of 1 to 5 acres, and The Timbers marked the mid-1980s push.
Then came the boom. Census figures show about 3,100 residents in 2000 and 17,708 in 2010. Maxwell Creek North, zoned as a planned development in 2000, was still platting new phases in December 2015, the same month a construction plat came up for Murphy Meadows, a patio home and townhome subdivision at Betsy Lane and McCreary Road. Rolling Ridge Estates, Hunters Landing, and Daniel Crossing filled in alongside. Since then the count has held flat. The Census Bureau’s July 2025 estimate is 20,985.
The Master Plan sums up the result: 63 percent of Murphy’s homes were built from 2000 to 2009, 84 percent before 2009, and about 94 percent are owner-occupied, with a median value near $560,000. A house from 2005 is past 20 now. That’s the age when builder-grade kitchens and baths start to show it.
Then there’s the ground. Murphy sits on the Blackland Prairie, the black, fertile soil that made it a farm town, and that clay moves with wet and dry seasons. The city’s September 2026 permit report lists eight foundation repair permits in that one month, each with a post-repair engineer letter as an inspection step. Before we move a drain or remove a wall in a slab house here, we look at the slab.
Remodeling a Murphy house from the 2000s
Kitchens lead. If your breakfast nook mostly collects mail, it’s often the best square footage in the remodel: rebuild it as a built-in banquette with storage drawers, then rework the island, the lighting, the cabinets, and the counters around it. Our kitchen remodeling page covers the full scope.
Here’s where Murphy draws the permit line. Its list of work that needs a permit exempts cosmetic jobs like painting, wallpapering, flooring, cabinets, and trim, and replacing plumbing fixtures. But any remodel or addition, electrical work, a water heater, new windows, a patio cover, an outdoor kitchen, foundation repair, and a shower pan all need one. That last item surprises people. Build a new walk-in shower and the pan alone means a permit.
Want a bigger shower in a mid-2000s primary bath? Remember the slab. Moving a drain means cutting concrete, so we lock every drain location before demolition. Bathroom remodeling has the details.
Doing the kitchen this year and the baths next year means two rounds of permits, dust, and inspections. Bundle them into one whole-home remodel and you get one.
Additions have a Murphy twist. The city kept a local rule, older than the 2009 state law limiting residential sprinkler mandates, that requires fire sprinklers in new homes of 6,000 square feet or more and in existing homes enlarged to that size. Only gross floor area inside the exterior walls counts, and covered patios open on at least one side are excluded. If your house is already large, a game room or primary suite addition can cross that line, so we measure before we design home additions. The city also reminds homeowners to check their HOA’s deed restrictions and covenants first.
Three Murphy landmarks
City Hall, pictured at the top of this page, opened in 2005 as part of the Municipal Complex. The historical marker out front tells the short version: Blackland Prairie farms, the 1888 renaming for William Murphy, who gave the railroad its right-of-way, and incorporation in 1958. Murphy’s schools are split between Plano ISD and Wylie ISD. Three more places locals know:
Decatur Maxwell Murphy Cemetery
The oldest and largest cemetery in Murphy sits off Maxwell Creek, with burials going back to 1853. James Maxwell Jr. deeded its 3 acres in 1886 for $5. About 300 graves are there, many of them young children and pioneer families, and the Cemetery Association of Murphy maintains it. Two of the names on its gate, Maxwell and Murphy, also name two of the city’s major roads: Maxwell Creek Road and Murphy Road.
Murphy Central Park and its amphitheater
At 550 North Murphy Road, Murphy Central Park has an amphitheater seating 2,500 to 3,000, a 2-acre stocked pond, a splash pad, and about 0.6 miles of 8-foot concrete trail tied into the Maxwell Creek Trail. The Master Plan calls the Municipal Complex, Central Park included, the core asset for community events.
C.A. McMillen High School
Plano ISD’s McMillen High School, at 750 North Murphy Road, is named for Comfort Allen McMillen (1818 to 1914). He came from Arkansas with his wife, Lydia Maxwell, and in 1846 settled on the muddy creek now called Maxwell Creek. The district describes the building as traditional in design outside, with the 21st century inside. Not a bad summary of Murphy.
How a Murphy project runs with MASACO
Murphy’s permit office wants a single contact. So do you. That’s how we work.
It starts with a walk-through of the suite or the house. You see 3D renderings before we price anything. Then you get a fixed-scope proposal organized by trade, with allowances spelled out. During construction, one project manager runs the job, sends you written photo updates every week, and handles the Customer Service, Fire, and Health reviews. At the end you get a close-out package with as-builts, permits, inspection records, the CO, and warranties, and we stay reachable after handover. The full sequence is on our process page.
Leasing a suite in Murphy Marketplace, opening a cafe near the new H-E-B, or finally redoing a 2000s kitchen in Maxwell Creek North? Book a consultation. We’ll walk it with you and hand you a written scope and schedule you can measure us against.
Building in Murphy: what to know.
Murphy went from about 3,100 residents in 2000 to 17,708 in 2010, and its 2026 Master Plan says 63 percent of the city's homes were built between 2000 and 2009, with only 3 percent of its land still vacant. Commercial space concentrates along FM 544, the two-mile strip the city brands The Corridor, where occupancy runs near 98.5 percent, so most new tenants take over someone else's suite. Permits, plan review, and certificates of occupancy run through the city's Customer Service Center at 206 North Murphy Road under the 2021 international codes, in effect since March 1, 2024.
Murphy neighborhoods and districts.
- Maxwell Creek North
- Rolling Ridge Estates
- Hunters Landing
- Daniel Crossing
- The Timbers
- Willow Wood Estates
- Skyline Acres
- Murphy Meadows
- The Corridor (FM 544)
- Murphy Marketplace
- Murphy Crossing
- McCreary Marketplace
Murphy on the map.
Open Murphy, TX in Google Maps
Photo credits
- Murphy City Council (March 2025).jpg by Flimbone08, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Decatur Maxwell Murphy Cemetery (March 2025).jpg by Flimbone08, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Amphitheater at Murphy, TX (March 2025).jpg by Flimbone08, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- C.A. McMillen High School - July 2026.jpg by Ranch9613, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
