Hillwood buys 618 acres for 2,000-home Lantern development near Pilot Point

By the GvilleTX Newsroom

Hillwood Communities purchased 618 acres of Denton County land in July to build a subdivision named Lantern, adding another large housing project to the fast-growing Pilot Point corridor just south of Cooke County, according to company announcements.

The property sits primarily east of Foutch Road and west of FM 1385, bounded by Strittmatter Road to the north and Friendship Road to the south. Development agreements approved by the Pilot Point City Council in October 2025 show the land will eventually hold about 2,000 single-family houses, a 30-acre apartment complex, commercial storefronts, and space for a potential Pilot Point Independent School District elementary school.

For decades, the acreage operated as working agricultural land. It carried a county appraisal of roughly $100,000 and generated about $100 a year in county property taxes, according to figures Hillwood presented to Denton County commissioners. The developer projects the finished subdivision will reach about $1.2 billion in taxable value, yielding roughly $2.2 million a year in future county tax collections.

Turning pastures into a residential neighborhood requires heavy utility work. To help cover the costs of water pipes, sewer mains, roads, and regional trails, local officials established a taxing zone for the project. Under an agreement approved unanimously by county commissioners in January 2026, Denton County will dedicate half of its new property tax revenue from the site toward the development's infrastructure for up to 25 years after the first final plat is recorded, ending no later than 2055.

Hillwood documents indicate the land will be annexed into Pilot Point for police and fire protection. The Mustang Special Utility District will handle water and sewer service. The developer told the county that buyers can expect houses priced between $350,000 and $600,000, averaging around $450,000, built on lots ranging from 40 to 70 feet wide. The site plan reserves slightly more than 100 acres for open space and parks.

Lantern adds another major tract to a deep housing pipeline planned for the area. Pilot Point planning records track more than 20,000 incoming housing units spread across surrounding master-planned developments. A city mapping document projects those neighborhoods could eventually bring more than 70,000 residents to a municipality that the Census Bureau estimated had 8,052 people in 2025, an 83 percent increase from 2020.

That outward pressure from the Dallas-Fort Worth area — which the Census Bureau notes has seen significant population gains on its outer fringes, reaching 8.5 million people in 2025 — is pushing infrastructure upgrades across rural North Texas boundaries. Recognizing the incoming traffic, the Texas Department of Transportation has proposed widening FM 1385 into a six-lane divided highway from U.S. 380 up to FM 455. Hillwood is building similar rural-to-suburban projects elsewhere in Denton County, steering a 6,000-home development on 3,200 acres in Denton and a 2,700-home tract in Justin.