Old Townsite
Pearland’s development began in 1892 when William Zychlinski, a Polish Count, purchased 2,560 acres of land surrounding the Mark Belt outpost along the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe rail lines. Zychlinski platted out the original town site in 1894.
The Old Townsite district consists of the land area bordered by Orange Street to the north, Walnut Street to the south, Galveston Street on the east and Austin Street on the west in what is now the eastern quadrant of Pearland.
THE HISTORIC DISTRICT TODAY
In 2022, Sullivan Brothers announced the development of a unique housing development in the Old Town district that will redevelop a large portion of the area south of Broadway Street and east of Main Street and make it a more walkable, mixed-use district. The Developer and City entered into a Development Agreement to provide up to $4.5M for improving public roads, water, storm and sanitary lines, and streetscape within the site. The public infrastructure improvements are currently under construction and are expected to be complete Spring 2023. New home construction is expected to break ground Summer 2023 on the 5.9-acre residential development, which consists generally of three vacant tracts that will be developed to include a mixture of 1900s-style one-story bungalows and two-story Southern row houses. The houses, ranging from 1,600 to 2,200 square feet, are expected to sell for between the upper $300,000s to the $400,000s.
In 2020, Energy Rental Solutions, a Caterpillar dealer dedicated to the specialty rental business, opened a 40,000 square-foot facility in the Rice Drier Commerce Park on State Highway 35.
In 2018, Diamond Bolt, a distributor of industrial fasteners serving the petrochemical & refining industries along the Texas Gulf Coast, opened a 12,000 square-foot manufacturing and warehouse facility on a two-acre site on Knapp Road.
The Pearland Independent School District relocated to the northern part of the district by acquiring a former retail site and investing $12 million in improvements to renovate the building and relocate the district’s headquarter offices to the space.
STATE HIGHWAY 35 REDEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
One of the main strategies outlined in the Pearland 20/20 Community Strategic Plan is to optimize the development potential of Pearland’s principal commercial corridors. A redevelopment strategy for the SH 35 Main Street corridor from Beltway 8 to the southern corporate limits has been developed to build upon the Strategic Plan suggestions and provide the “big picture” strategic actions that are needed to encourage more investment in the corridor. Learn more.
SH 35 ENTRYWAY AND CORRIDOR ENHANCEMENTS
One of the five catalyst concept areas identified in the Strategy is the Northern Gateway Entrance and Corridor Streetscape Improvements. By improving infrastructure and streetscape within the corridor, the image and sense of place, market appeal and overall taxable value of the area can increase dramatically. To begin implementing this concept, a SH 35 Gateways & Corridor Enhancements Concept Plan was developed for the corridor, from Beltway 8 to Broadway. The concept plan proposed focusing on the entryway at Beltway 8, including two monument signs near Clear Creek, planting the medians with canopy trees, enhancing pedestrian areas at major intersections, and framing the roadway with smaller street trees along the right-of-way. In the Old Townsite section, the plan proposed creating a more desirable walking environment by extending the sidewalk to the back of the right-of-way adding shrubbery as space in the road right-of-way allows. Learn more.