The Colony started life as one builder’s subdivision. In 1973 the Dallas homebuilder Fox and Jacobs bought about 2,500 acres on the east shore of Lewisville Lake, south of the small lakeside community of Eastvale. Streets went down in 1974, the first families moved in that October, and by January 1977 more than 3,500 residents voted to incorporate. That’s the sequence in the City’s own history, and you can still read it on the map.
North of SH 121 you’ll find street after street of brick houses from the 1970s and 1980s. Along 121 itself sits some of the largest retail in North Texas. The Census Bureau’s July 2025 estimate puts the city at 46,196 people, on 13.7 square miles of land.
We’re a woman- and minority-owned general contractor at 7950 Legacy Drive in Plano, about 15 minutes from the municipal offices on Main Street, and Grandscape is roughly two miles west of our office on SH 121. We haven’t completed a project inside The Colony yet. Our closest finished work is next door in Frisco: Calibration Brain & Body, a 4,250 SF wellness and media studio conversion with a podcast studio, acoustic panels, a custom front desk, and a water filtration fountain, finished on an expedited 5 week schedule.
SH 121 brought the big boxes to The Colony
The Sam Rayburn Tollway, SH 121, crosses the south side of the city, and that’s where the square footage is. Grandscape spreads across 433 acres of the 121 Corridor. Its anchor, Nebraska Furniture Mart, opened in spring 2015, and the City describes it as the largest home furnishings retail and warehouse development in the nation, expected to draw six to eight million visitors a year. Scheels, Galaxy Theatres, and Andretti Indoor Karting & Games followed.
The rest of the corridor fills in around it. The EDC’s property listings put The Colony Crossing at the northeast corner of SH 121, Plano Parkway, and Paige Road, directly across from Nebraska Furniture Mart, with The Home Depot and Rooms To Go. The Village at 121, at South Colony Boulevard, offers roughly 220,000 square feet of retail, restaurant, and mixed-use space. Live Oak Logistics Park 121 lists 54,434 SF available in one building, with 2,800 SF of spec office in place.
One listing says the quiet part out loud. 121 Office Plaza sells office condos as shell space, from 1,900 to 12,000 square feet, that a buyer can finish out with their own contractor. That’s the kind of job we’re built for: a raw suite, a floor plan, and a move-in date.
Big new boxes come with their own code triggers. The Colony’s fire department guide for developers requires sprinklers in every commercial building over 6,000 square feet, a key box on non-residential buildings for after-hours entry, and emergency responder radio coverage in new buildings of 10,000 square feet or more. Sprinkler and alarm shop drawings go to the fire department for review before anything is installed.
There’s a sequencing rule worth knowing before you sign a lease in a building that’s still going up. The City’s commercial construction packet says shell buildings must be complete and finaled before any tenant finish-out gets a certificate of occupancy, and a shell building never gets a CO of its own. Your opening date rides on the landlord’s shell final. We ask for that date in writing before we schedule your tenant improvement work.
Main Street and Austin Ranch hold the older suites
Main Street is FM 423, the city’s spine. TxDOT widened it through The Colony from four lanes to eight between SH 121 and Cougar Alley as part of an $81.5 million project that began in October 2014, Community Impact reported. A land listing at 7501 Main Street now counts more than 31,000 vehicles a day.
The centers on Main are older than the road work. The EDC lists Lakeridge Plaza at Main and North Colony Boulevard as built in 1986, and an office building at 6600 Paige Road as built in 1985 and recently renovated. Colony Square, a 100,000 SF neighborhood center, sits at 5201 South Colony Boulevard. Village Corners, near the tollway at 3751 Main, is anchored by Walmart.
That’s where second-generation space lives in this city. A former nail bar, a former sub shop, a former insurance office, each with a ceiling grid, restrooms, and electrical that somebody else designed. Some of it is worth keeping. Some of it only looks that way until the inspector opens the ceiling.
Then there’s Austin Ranch, a newer master-planned district. The EDC describes 1,900 acres of rolling hills with corporate campuses, single-family homes, townhomes, and apartments, plus The Shacks, six small restaurants sharing an open-air patio above a one-acre dog park shaded by oaks. Austin Square, the plaza in the photo at the top of this page, has a 4,734 SF second-generation restaurant space listed with the EDC.
A second-generation kitchen is only a head start if the hood, the grease duct, and the interceptor still pass. In The Colony, the grease duct gets an inspection of its own.
The tenant finish-out sequence in that same packet runs plumbing rough, MEP and framing, metal duct, grease duct and hood, interior walls, an insulation inspection by a state-registered third party, firewalls, above-ceiling MEP, utility final, and building final. The grease duct inspection needs a certified welder’s certificate of approval for field welds and a light or pressurized smoke test set up at the inspection. That’s why our restaurant construction budgets assume the old duct gets tested before anyone calls it reusable.
Brick houses from 1974 and the decade after
An April 1977 D Magazine profile described the new town as “block after block of neat brick homes, a spindly tree or two struggling to take hold in each front yard.” At 3,500 residents, the magazine noted, it was the largest community in Texas ever to seek incorporation. Fox and Jacobs had already put up $100,000 for a fire station and two trucks.
Those trees are grown now, and so are the houses. Census survey data for 2020 to 2024 shows 18.4% of the city’s housing built in the 1970s and 16.7% in the 1980s, about 35% combined. Another 53% went up from 2000 on, much of it in The Tribute, which the EDC calls a 1,500 acre master-planned lakeside golf and resort community, and in Austin Ranch and the apartments near Grandscape.
So a remodel here usually means one of two very different houses. A 1978 brick single-story off Main Street, wired and plumbed before anyone in the family was born. Or a 2012 two-story in The Tribute that mostly needs its builder-grade finishes replaced.
The older one deserves more care at the walkthrough. We look for:
- Original drain lines under the slab. They’ve carried water for nearly 50 years. A camera inspection before a kitchen or bath remodel costs far less than a surprise mid-demo.
- Wiring and panels. Houses wired in the early 1970s sometimes have aluminum branch circuits, and many original panels have no room for a modern kitchen’s dedicated circuits.
- Walls between rooms. Plenty of these plans close the kitchen off from the family room. Some of those walls carry the roof, and The Colony requires a permit for removing framing, load bearing or not.
- Foundation movement. Since October 1, 2025, foundation repair needs a permit here, with plans stamped and sealed by a licensed engineer.
Eastvale is the other old piece of the map. Founded on the lake’s eastern shore in the early 1960s, it grew to about 600 residents before consolidating with The Colony in 1987. The Texas Senate resolution marking the city’s 40th anniversary in 2017 credits two things for the city’s existence: that little lakeside community, and the Lewisville Lake dam, which began collecting water in 1954.
Permits at 6053 Main Street arrive by email, as PDFs
Building Inspections handles plan review, permits, inspections, and certificates of occupancy from 6053 Main Street. Submittals are digital. Applications go in by email as PDFs, and the department won’t accept any other format. A $50 application fee gets collected before anything is processed, and the plan review response takes 10 to 15 business days. Office hours run Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Fridays only until 11:30 a.m.
A few rules that shape a schedule in The Colony:
- Codes. Construction documents submitted after July 16, 2025 fall under the 2024 international codes and the 2023 National Electrical Code. Fire work follows the 2024 International Fire Code under Ordinance 2025-2611.
- Registration. Every contractor must register with the City, and the registration lasts one year from the date it’s paid.
- Inspections. Requests go through eTRAKiT, by email, or on the automated line by 4 p.m. for the next business day. Cancellations get called in between 7 and 8 a.m., and a voicemail cancellation doesn’t count.
- Dumpsters. Republic Services is the City’s exclusive solid waste provider. A roll-off from anyone else can bring a stop work order.
The commercial permit application asks for the project valuation, whether the building is sprinklered, whether an asbestos survey was done, and the TDLR project number for accessibility review, so we gather all of it before the first email goes out.
The certificate of occupancy has its own application, with a $75 fee. Any alteration needs a separate permit submitted alongside it. If you’ll serve food or drinks, a detailed floor plan with the kitchen equipment goes in too. The form also asks whether you’ll keep flammable liquids of 10 gallons or more, high-piled combustible storage, or compressed gases, and those answers steer the fire review.
In The Colony, every affected department signs off before the CO is issued. One open item anywhere holds the whole opening.
Restaurants add health. The City runs its own health inspections, and its 2025 to 2026 fee schedule sets plan review at $150 and the food establishment permit at $350 under 2,000 square feet, $550 above that, and $750 above 2,500. Health permits expire every December 31.
We’ve lived the fire side of a final. At Fade & Style in Allen, a 1,500 SF barbershop we took from shell to open in 6 weeks, the PVC station-wall system needed extra fire marshal test documentation before the CO. We worked it out with the supplier and the city without moving the opening date. That’s why we ask for fire test data on specialty wall systems before they’re ordered, not after.
Home remodeling in The Colony, TX, house by house
If you’re comparing contractors for home remodeling in The Colony, TX, start with the City’s Do I Need a Permit guide. It’s stricter than many homeowners expect. Shower pans, tub conversions, new light fixtures and outlets, sheetrock, insulation, and subfloor all need a permit. Window and exterior door replacements do too, and a change in opening size turns it into a remodel permit.
Here’s how that plays out in this city’s houses:
- Kitchens. In a 1970s or 1980s plan, the big move is usually opening the kitchen to the family room, which means a beam, a framing permit, and new circuits on a panel that may need replacing.
- Bathrooms. Hall baths from that era often have a tub you’d trade for a walk-in shower. The City’s residential inspection sequence includes a sheetrock inspection for shower and bath enclosures, so we schedule it before tile.
- Whole-home remodels. Flooring, lighting, doors, trim, and paint carried through the whole house at once, with one permit set and one crew schedule.
Garages come up a lot in houses this age. Most owners want the space to work harder without giving up parking: a coated floor, wall cabinets, a workbench circuit, real light. New outlets and fixtures need an electrical permit here. Turning the garage into living space is a bigger step: it needs a remodel permit, and the City’s Planning Department has to confirm conversions are allowed in your zoning area first.
Lakefront owners have one more boundary to respect. Lewisville Lake is a Corps of Engineers reservoir, so the strip between a lakefront backyard and the water is usually federal land, not part of the lot, and the City has warned residents that docks, sheds, private landscaping, stored property, unauthorized vegetation removal, and irrigation without a permit are all violations there. Mowing and irrigation permits are available at City Hall. We design decks, patios, and outdoor kitchens to stay on your side of the line.
Three places everyone in The Colony knows
The Grandscape Wheel
At 180 feet tall, the wheel at 5740 Grandscape Boulevard lights up in color after dark. It carries 42 climate-controlled gondolas, each holding up to eight riders.
The Shoreline Trail at Ridgepointe Park
The City’s Shoreline Trail runs 3.5 miles along Lewisville Lake, from Stewart Creek Park to Ridgepointe Park, and was designed as an environmentally sensitive hike-and-bike route. Like every trail in the City’s system, it’s ADA compliant.
Hawaiian Waters on Paige Road
The seasonal waterpark at 4400 Paige Road, now called Hawaiian Waters, has slides, a wave pool, a lazy river, and the 65-foot Aloha Tower. Older photos, like the one below, show it under its former name, Hawaiian Falls.
Running a project in The Colony with MASACO
Same six steps whether it’s a showroom off 121 or a 1978 kitchen off Main Street. You can read the full process here.
- Understand. We meet you at the space, read the lease or the deed restrictions, and check what The Colony’s building, fire, and health reviews will ask of it.
- Visualize. 3D renderings come first, so you approve the look before any number is attached to it.
- Plan. Your proposal is fixed in scope, broken out trade by trade, with every allowance written down.
- Execute. One project manager owns the schedule and sends you a written report with photos each week.
- Deliver. Handover comes with a close-out package: as-builts, permits, inspection records, the certificate of occupancy, and warranties.
- Support. After move-in, you still have our number, and we still answer it.
Sara Bannat (Founder and CEO) and Mahmoud Abu Saad (COO) run MASACO, and the company is a Goldman Sachs Preferred Vendor. If you need a general contractor in The Colony, TX, for a suite on 121, a second-generation space on Main Street, or a brick house that’s ready for its next 50 years, book a consultation. Bring the lease exhibit or a few photos of the house, and we’ll bring a plan you can see before you sign.
Building in The Colony: what to know.
The Colony began in 1973 as a Fox and Jacobs subdivision of brick homes on the east shore of Lewisville Lake, and about 35 percent of its housing still dates from the 1970s and 1980s. Commercial growth runs along SH 121, where Nebraska Furniture Mart anchors the 433 acre Grandscape development, and up Main Street (FM 423), where older centers hold most of the second-generation suites. Building Inspections at 6053 Main Street takes permit applications as emailed PDFs and reviews them under the 2024 international codes.
The Colony neighborhoods and districts.
- Austin Ranch
- The Tribute
- Stewart Peninsula
- The Legends
- Eastvale
- Grandscape
- The Colony Crossing
- The Village at 121
- The Shacks at Austin Ranch
- Main Street (FM 423)
- Live Oak Logistics Park 121
The Colony on the map.
Open The Colony, TX in Google Maps
Photo credits
- Austin Ranch.JPG by JHP, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Grandscape - The Colony, Texas.jpg (cropped) by Woobyusmanii, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Ridgepointe Park, The Colony, TX.jpg by Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Hawaiian-Falls-2824.jpg by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
