Business View Civil and Municipal | May/June 2022

95 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 5 MANOR , TEXAS In addition to the US 290 that connects East Texas to the West, Manor also has Texas State Highway 130, which runs north and south and connects Manor to San Antonio, Waco, Pflugerville, and Round Rock. “It’s such a strategic position for workforce provision,” Mayor Harvey explains. Dunlop adds, “Central Texas is what they call ‘Silicon Hills’ because of the cluster of tech companies in the Austin metro area. Manor is a huge workforce resource and we’re trying to capture some of that supportive industry business.” The majority of residents currently commute out of Manor, usually to Austin or Round Rock where Dell’s headquarters are based, but City Council is looking to change that trend by introducing more employment opportunities and industrial manufacturing to create a better jobs-housing balance. “The same developer that’s doing our Whole Foods Cold Storage Distribution Center owns the lot right behind that property,” Dunlop notes. “That’s where they’ll be putting a 196,000-square-foot spec industrial building – Manor’s official first major industrial within the city limits.” When it comes to housing inventory, Dunlop attests, “Manor can’t keep the homes away. The Mayor and Council have recognized the need for housing diversity. Most of our growth for the past 20 years has been in single-family homes. We’ve had a lot of first-time home buyers, which is great that we’re providing that inventory for the region, but we don’t have a lot of housing that falls above or below that bracket. We redid our zoning two years ago to kind of codify those different types of housing products. We’re seeing a lot of the results of that now with some townhome communities coming in, over 1,000 apartment units, and lots of subdivisions.” Manor was founded in 1872 to give residents easy access to markets via the Houston and Texas Central Railway. It was named after the town’s original postmaster, James Manor, who