Located at I-35 North and University Boulevard in Round Rock, the 1,550-acre community had 272 new-home starts in 2012. That marks a 42 percent increase over the 191 starts that Metrostudy reported for Teravista in 2011.

Teravista ranked a close second in the Austin region for new-home closings in 2012 in the Metrostudy report. Teravista had 215 closings last year, a 10 percent increase over 2011.  (The highest-ranked community for closings, Sun City Georgetown, had eight more closings than Teravista.)

Teravista also had a 12.7 percent increase in new-home sales for 2012 compared to the prior year, according to its developer, Newland Communities. (Metrostudy ranks communities by new-home construction starts and closings, while Newland records a “sale” when a buyer enters into a contract agreement with a homebuilder.)

Teravista had 239 new-home sales last year, compared to 212 in 2011.

Teravista benefitted from Austin’s rebounding housing market, and also from an ongoing program to broaden the selection of new-home offerings in the community, said Vaike O’Grady, marketing director for Newland Communities.

Teravista offers new homes priced from the high $100,000s to over $600,000, and the community introduced several new choices for homebuyers in 2012. These include luxury estate homes in Fairway Estates, a gated neighborhood with 90-foot homesites overlooking the Teravista Golf Club.

In December 2012, Teravista became the first community in Austin to open a model home featuring the NextGen multigenerational floor plan from Lennar and Village Builders.

Teravista will continue its momentum in 2013, with plans to open a major new recreational amenity and a new phase of neighborhoods this fall.

But the most unique feature of this 3,574-square-foot home is its status as the first LEED-certified home completed by a volume builder in the Austin region. It is open to the public as a decorated model home in the new Fairway Estates neighborhood in Teravista, a 1,550-acre master-planned community located at I-35 North and University Blvd.

LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a rating system for the design, construction and operation of high performance green homes and buildings developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

This Wilshire home received its official LEED certification plaque from the USGBC Central Texas-Balcones Chapter in a recent ceremony attended by officials from that local chapter, along with Williamson County Commissioner Valerie Covey and representatives from Wilshire Homes and Newland Communities, the developer of Teravista.

“The opening of this new Wilshire home begins a significant new chapter for green building in Austin,” said Pam Losefsky, executive director of the USBGC Central Texas-Balcones Chapter. “While there have been a few high-end custom homes in the Austin area to receive LEED certification under the LEED for Home program, Wilshire Homes is the first volume builder to commit to building LEED-certified homes in the region.”

Steve Hayes, division president, said that Wilshire Homes’ parent company, MHI, has committed to building LEED certified homes in all of Central Texas communities, including Teravista.

Wilshire Homes are priced from the mid $100,000s to over $600,000 in 12 Austin area communities. In Teravista’s Fairway Estates neighborhood, where the LEED certified model is located, Wilshire Homes are priced from the $400,000s to $600,000s and are offered on estate-sized 90-foot-wide homesites, many offering views of the Teravista Golf Club. Fairway Estates also offers new homes by Partners In Building, which has opened a new model next to the Wilshire model.

Wilshire also builds new homes priced from the low $200,000s in Teravista’s Huntington Villas neighborhood, and these homes are also now LEED certified.

Features contributing to the LEED certification include:

• Energy saving features such as a home tightness test, to prevent air leakage, which can account for up to one-third of a home’s heat loss. Each home also has an individual A/C and heating blueprint to ensure properly sized units. Combustible appliances such as furnaces and water heaters are installed outside of the home’s thermal envelope.
• Air quality. With studies showing that indoor air is often more polluted than outdoor air, Wilshire’s LEED features include mechanically controlled fresh air intakes and 4-inch pleated MERV air filters.
• Water efficiency measures include PEX plumbing with dedicated manifolds for each bathroom, allowing hot water to reach fixtures twice as quickly. Drought tolerant plants are used for landscaping.
• Resource efficiency is another focus, and the use of engineered lumber means that fewer trees are cut down, and byproducts are recycled into new building materials. Exterior cladding materials, including brick and cementious fiber planks, have a 25-year guarantee.
• Moisture management is key, since trapped moisture is a prime cause of defects. LEED standards call for a continuous, unobstructed drainage plane behind the exterior cladding material, so water can drain off and not sneak behind enclosed surfaces.
• Third-party verification is another important area, and Wilshire’s process includes at least four independent verifications by groups including the EPA and Green Built Texas.

About the U.S. Green Building Council Central Texas – Balcones Chapter

The U.S. Green Building Council Central Texas – Balcones Chapter is a mission-driven, 501 (c)(3) nonprofit. Founded in 2003, USGBC CT-B is the local chapter of the national U.S. Green Building Council, the leader in promoting sustainable building practices throughout the country and developer of the LEED rating system.