Planning and Visioning Meridiana
EHRA is privileged to work with Rise Communities on the developer’s premier master-planned community, Meridiana. Meridiana, located on State Highway 288 (SH 288), south of Pearland in the Cities of Manvel and Iowa Colony, launched home sales in 2016. EHRA provides land planning, civil engineering, hydrology, surveying and utility district services for the project.
Planning Project Manager Brad Sweitzer has worked on Meridiana for nearly a decade, assisting with creation of the overall land plan and the Planned Unit Development (PUD) guidelines that set the character for the community. PUDs are development tools that codify the design standards and rules by which developers and cities allow projects to occur. Mr. Sweitzer and Rise Communities worked with both Manvel and Iowa Colony to create multiple PUDs establishing lot sizes, land use, thoroughfare connectivity and aesthetic considerations.
Since Meridiana is approximately 65% complete, platting activity is ongoing and schools and retail areas that support existing and proposed home sites are presently either established or under construction. EHRA regularly submits plans for new residential sections and achieves PUD approvals despite ever-changing market conditions. This fluctuating market environment has required Brad to revise master plans and apply for variances and rezoning on occasion. As lot sizes and home prices dramatically changed over the last two years, EHRA closely collaborated with Rise to continue providing home sites in Meridiana while maintaining the high quality of the award-winning community.
Mr. Sweitzer’s planning team diligently coordinated with the land services team and hydrologists at EHRA to create a visually attractive stormwater and detention system, effectively integrating recreation trails and supplying pedestrian connectivity from neighborhoods to local school campuses. The team also worked with EHRA’s public infrastructure practice area to solve the complex intersection geometry of Meridiana Parkway at State Highway 6 (SH 6). The alignment had to weave under power transmission lines and over a railroad parallel to the highway. The resulting boulevard is a nearly five-mile-long connection between SH 288 and SH 6 lined with new landscaping, waterways and jogging trails.
Seeing Meridiana in its current state of development is very satisfying to Brad and the EHRA planning and visioning team. Brad shares that, in addition to the beautiful recreation center site, he is “especially pleased to be designing multiple mixed-use townhome and retail sites that will be unique to the area. It’s been great working alongside Rise Communities for all these years to help bring their vision to life.” EHRA is proud to continue delivering a wide range of services which help create places people call home.
