New Construction in Southlake, TX: What’s Actually Being Built in a City That’s Nearly Out of Land
Search “new homes in Southlake” and you’ll get builder landing pages, portal listings, and a lot of renderings. What you won’t get is the thing that actually shapes your search: Southlake is close to built out. There is no 400-lot master-planned community coming. There is no phase two with a model park and a sales trailer.
What Southlake produces instead is a handful of small subdivisions a year, a short list of remaining lots inside existing communities, and a steady stream of teardown-and-rebuild projects on older estate lots. Three very different paths, with three very different price tags, timelines, and risks.
If you want a brand-new home in Carroll ISD, here’s how it actually works.
Path 1: Small infill subdivisions
These are the projects that come through city council a few at a time, usually on land that was a homestead, a church parcel, or an unplatted tract someone held for decades. Recent examples give you the scale:
- Bear Hollow, on roughly 21 acres along Davis Boulevard, was approved on first reading in August 2026 by a 6-1 vote. It came in at 34 homes, down from the 36 originally proposed in May, with an average lot around 14,000 square feet. The plan preserves close to 52% of the site’s tree canopy.
- Breeze Way at Carroll, near Breeze Way and South Carroll Avenue, cleared its second reading in June 2026. Six homes, average lot about 22,400 square feet.
- Jane’s Place, a 15-lot development on 22.7 acres from custom builder Coleigh Homes, moved through council in early 2026 with one-acre minimum lots.
- A four-acre slice of surplus land at Florence Elementary was proposed for four single-family lots, two of them a full acre each.
Notice the pattern. Six homes. Fifteen homes. Thirty-four homes. That’s the entire pipeline, and it arrives one council vote at a time.
Notice the other pattern too: these projects are hard to get approved. A 27-lot development near SH 114 and Shady Oaks Drive was denied 4-3 in 2025. Bear Hollow was tabled in May over drainage and density concerns, shrank by two lots, and came back three months later. A senior housing proposal on Davis Boulevard was denied 7-0. Southlake residents show up to these meetings, and council listens.
What this means for you as a buyer: infill lots sell fast and quietly, often before there’s anything to see. If you want one, you need someone tracking council and P&Z agendas, not refreshing a portal. By the time a subdivision has a name and a sign, the good lots are frequently spoken for.
Path 2: The last lots in existing communities
The largest remaining pocket of true new construction is Carillon Parc, at SH 114 and North White Chapel Boulevard. The residential piece has 79 lots, sold to five different builders, with homes marketed in the $1.5 million to $3 million range and styled to match the adjacent Carillon neighborhood. Homes are under construction now, and the 2026 St. Jude Dream Home is being built there.
One thing to understand before you buy: the residential portion moved ahead first. The commercial heart of the project, the hotel, the restaurants, the retail, the park with the water feature, has been tabled at council repeatedly at the developer’s own request. The original 2008 approval covered 285 acres and more than a million square feet of commercial space. What’s under construction now is a 42.5-acre version.
That is not unusual for a project this size, and it does not mean the town center won’t happen. But if part of what you’re paying for is walkable retail out your front door, ask when. Ask what’s actually approved versus proposed, and pull the zoning history yourself. The city posts every agenda and ordinance online.
Beyond Carillon Parc, remaining new-build inventory shows up as scattered lots and spec homes in places like Ferguson Place and the smaller custom pockets around the city. These come and go from the MLS with almost no marketing.
Path 3: Teardown and rebuild
This is quietly the biggest source of new homes in Southlake, and almost nobody writes a buyer’s guide to it.
The math is straightforward. A lot of Southlake’s estate inventory was built between the late 1980s and the early 2000s on half-acre to full-acre lots, in locations you can no longer buy. Buying one of those homes for the land, taking it down, and building new gets you a current floor plan in an established neighborhood with mature trees. In some cases it costs less than a comparable new build on a smaller lot.
The catch is that you’re taking on a development project, not a home purchase. Land, demolition, design, permitting, and construction all sit on you. Typical teardown-to-rebuild timelines in Southlake run roughly 18 to 24 months from the contract on the existing property to the certificate of occupancy on the new one. Budget for it and it works. Assume it’s a nine-month build and it doesn’t.
The Southlake-specific rules that catch people
Southlake regulates development more tightly than most DFW suburbs, and the rules are enforced. A few that regularly surprise buyers and out-of-area builders:
The tree ordinance has teeth. Southlake’s current Tree Preservation Ordinance is 585-E, backed by a Tree Technical Manual. Lots platted under a Tree Conservation Plan are tracked on the city’s Tree Conservation Map, and on those lots, removing or altering a protected tree without approval can trigger mitigation, meaning replacement plantings or payment into the city’s reforestation fund. The ordinance protects the critical root zone, defined by the tree’s drip line, not just the trunk.
Tree protection comes before your building permit. Protection fencing has to be installed with signage posted 20 feet apart, and the tree protection inspection has to be approved before the building permit is released. Grading or construction activity before that inspection gets your inspections canceled or gets you cited. There’s also a permit fee for tree protection, currently $50.
Preserved trees dictate your floor plan. This is the part people underestimate. Trees you must keep drive building placement, foundation design, and driveway location. On a teardown, get the arborist survey done during due diligence, not after closing.
Setbacks and impervious cover limit your footprint. Southlake’s code sets front, rear, and side setbacks by zoning district, and impervious cover limits cap the combined footprint of house, driveway, and hardscape. Easements, drainage easements, and flood zone designations all reduce net buildable area further. A survey and a preliminary site plan review will tell you what you can actually build, which is often smaller than what you assumed when you made the offer.
Construction hours are regulated. Work is allowed 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, only work that makes no noise audible at the property line.
None of this is a reason to avoid building in Southlake. It’s a large part of why Southlake looks the way it does, and why the mature canopy in neighborhoods like Timarron and Clariden Ranch is worth what it’s worth. It just means the due diligence has to happen before you’re under contract.
Build new, or buy and renovate?
Worth running both. Much of Southlake’s housing stock dates to the 1990s and early 2000s, which means a large share of homes on the market are at the point where kitchens, baths, roofs, and mechanical systems are due. A well-executed renovation on an established lot frequently competes with a new build on cost, and it gets you into the house years sooner.
New construction wins on warranty, energy performance, current layouts, and not living through a permit process. Renovation wins on location, lot size, mature trees, and timeline. The right answer depends on the specific house, the specific lot, and how much project management you actually want in your life.
One thing to settle before you visit a model home
The agent sitting in the builder’s sales office works for the builder. They are professional, helpful, and legally on the other side of your transaction. Their job is to get the builder the best terms.
Bring your own representation, and bring it to the first visit, because many builders will not recognize an agent registered after your initial walk-through. On a $2 million custom build, the contract terms, the allowance schedule, the change order language, and the warranty are where the money is. That’s the part you want someone reading on your behalf.
Frequently asked questions
Is there still new construction available in Southlake? Yes, but in small quantities. Current supply comes from small infill subdivisions, the remaining lots at Carillon Parc, scattered spec homes, and teardown-rebuild projects. There is no large master-planned community underway.
How much does it cost to build a custom home in Southlake? Construction generally runs $250 to $600 or more per square foot in DFW in 2026, with Southlake builds frequently above $500. Land, site work, permits, and soft costs are additional. New construction listings in Southlake have recently averaged around $2.8 million.
How long does a teardown and rebuild take in Southlake? Plan on roughly 18 to 24 months from contract on the existing property to certificate of occupancy, including due diligence, design, demolition, permitting, and construction.
Can I remove trees on my Southlake lot? Not freely. Southlake’s Tree Preservation Ordinance 585-E governs protected trees, and lots covered by a Tree Conservation Plan are mapped by the city. Removal can require a permit and trigger mitigation. Check with Planning and Development Services before anything comes down.
Do new construction homes in Southlake feed Carroll ISD? Most of Southlake does, but not every address. A few pockets fall into Keller, Grapevine-Colleyville, or Northwest ISD. Verify the exact address with the district, not the listing or the map view. And keep in mind Carroll ISD approved a campus realignment in January 2026 that closes Durham Intermediate ahead of the 2027-28 school year, so feeder patterns are being redrawn.
Should I use my own agent for new construction? Yes, and bring them to your first visit to the builder. The builder’s on-site agent represents the builder.
Looking at building or buying new in Southlake?
The inventory that matters here rarely announces itself. Lots trade before they’re marketed, spec homes come and go quietly, and the difference between a good teardown lot and an expensive mistake usually comes down to a tree survey and a site plan review.
At Riley River Realty, we track what’s moving through Southlake council and P&Z, we know which lots have real constraints, and we read builder contracts before our clients sign them. If you’re weighing new construction against a renovation, or you want to know what’s actually available right now, get in touch.
