Telfair is a

planned community A planned community, planned city, planned town, or planned settlement is any community that was carefully planned from its inception and is typically constructed on previously undeveloped land. This contrasts with settlements that evolve ...

located in

Sugar Land, Texas Sugar Land is the largest city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, located in the southwestern part of the metropolitan area. Located about southwest of downtown Houston, Sugar Land is a populous suburban municipality centered around th ...

.Wollam, Allison.
Newland to transform prison land into Telfair
" ''

Houston Business Journal American City Business Journals, Inc. (ACBJ) is an American newspaper publisher based in Charlotte, North Carolina. ACBJ publishes The Business Journals, which contains local business news for 44 markets in the United States, Hemmings Motor News ...

''. Sunday February 27, 2005. Retrieved on October 2, 2011. It is built on former prison land (including a

cemetery A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...

) which had been the property of the Central Prison Unit of the State of Texas.

History

In 2002 the State of Texas sold a parcel of land from the

Texas Department of Criminal Justice The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails, ...

Central Prison Unit to Newland Communities,Hanson, Eric.
Houston museum branching out
" ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Texas, United States. , it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. With it ...

''. January 24, 2008. Retrieved on November 19, 2010. a developer from

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. The property was one of the last large tracts within the city limits of Sugar Land that was open for development. In February 2005 Newland broke ground on Telfair, a planned community located on former prison land. The community was named after Telfair Square in

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

. The developer planned to build 4,000 to 4,500 houses, and it planned to open the first group of houses in the northern hemisphere Spring of 2006. The development opened in 2006.Feser, Katherine.
Telfair Central Hall returning to Sugar Land earlier days
" ''

''. Monday March 1, 2010. Retrieved on October 2, 2011. In 2009 Telfair had a 10% sales increase. At that time new house sales in most areas of Houston had decreased by double digits.Fortbendnow Staff.
Telfair Wins 3 HBJ Landmark Awards
." Instant Fort Bend (''

''). April 13, 2010. Retrieved on October 2, 2011. As of March 2010, of the 2,800 planned houses, over 1,600 of them had been constructed. In 2010 the ''

'' awarded the development three landmark awards: one for the best residential community, and two for transforming a housing facility of the Central Unit into a museum facility. The Imperial State Farm Cemetery, where inmates from the old prison were buried from 1912 to the 1930s, still remains in the center of a grass field in the northwest section of Telfair. Telfair's central road, University Boulevard, was previously named Flanagan Road after Imperial Prison Farm (the old name of the Central Prison Unit) warden R. J. "Buck" Flanagan (1880–1949), who held the position for 30 years until his death.

Composition

The community is located on U.S. Route 59 /

Interstate 69 Interstate 69 (I-69) is an Interstate Highway in the United States currently consisting of 10 unconnected segments with an original continuous segment from Indianapolis, Indiana, northeast to the Canadian border in Port Huron, Michigan, at ...

(Southwest Freeway). The main entrance is on University Boulevard, south of

Texas State Highway 6 State Highway 6 (SH 6) runs from the Red River, the Texas–Oklahoma state line, to northwest of Galveston, where it is known as the Old Galveston Highway. In Sugar Land and Missouri City, it is known as Alvin-Sugarland Road and runs per ...

Economy

In 2012,

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globall ...

announced that it was relocating its Fort Bend County operations from

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

to the Telfair area. The construction was completed and the building opened in early 2014.

Education

Residents are zoned to the

Fort Bend Independent School District The Fort Bend Independent School District, also known as Fort Bend ISD or FBISD, is a school district system in the U.S. state of Texas based in the city of Sugar Land. The district spans covering almost all of the city of Sugar Land, the city ...

.Community Map
."
Flash file
Telfair. Retrieved on October 2, 2011. Telfair is zoned to Cornerstone Elementary School (in Telfair), Sartartia Middle School, and

Clements High School William P. Clements High School, more commonly known as Clements High School, is a public high school in First Colony and in Sugar Land within the U.S. state of Texas that is named after former Texas governor Bill Clements, and is a part of the Fo ...

, Portions were previously zoned to

Kempner High School I.H. Kempner High School, better known simply as Kempner High School, is a public high school in Sugar Land, Texas and a part of the Fort Bend Independent School District. It was named after Isaac Herbert Kempner (1873–1967), the founder of ...

Parks and recreation

The community includes Telfair Central Hall, a community center with a design matching the former Central Unit Two Camp building. The building is near New Territory Boulevard and University Boulevard. The original community plans stated that of the property would be recreational land. Newland planned to add a lake. The community includes a plot of land earmarked to house a future municipal park, which would take an additional 70 acres.

Houston Museum of Natural Science Sugar Land

The former Central Unit parcel included a former inmate dormitory, Two Camp, Newland decided to restore the former dormitory building, which had some broken windows and some loose exterior bricks. The company arranged to place a new metal roof on the building. City officials and local historians positively reacted to the decision from Newland.Shauk, Zain.
Plan to close Sugar Land prison could save millions, free up land
" ''

''. Friday January 21, 2011. Retrieved on September 23, 2011. In 2009 the Two Camp Building and its surrounding land became the

Houston Museum of Natural Science The Houston Museum of Natural Science (abbreviated as HMNS) is a natural history museum located on the northern border of Hermann Park in Houston, Texas, United States. The museum was established in 1909 by the Houston Museum and Scientific Societ ...

Sugar Land. The subdivision donated the building and land to the City of Sugar Land, and the city leases the building to the museum. The museum spent $3 million to help renovate the building.

References

External links

Telfair
{{coord missing, Texas Sugar Land, Texas