New Construction Along the I-35 Corridor: What Buyers Need to Know

Few stretches of Texas have as much active new-home construction right now as the North I-35 Corridor between San Antonio and New Braunfels. National and regional builders have been racing to secure land here for years, and the pace has only picked up as the corridor's population and job base keep expanding. This guide covers the major master-planned communities driving that growth, what new construction actually costs along the corridor today, and the specific things buyers should check before signing anything.

Why builders keep choosing this corridor

The math is straightforward from a builder's perspective. The North I-35 Corridor sits inside the broader Austin-San Antonio megaregion, one of the fastest-growing areas in the country, while still offering meaningfully more available land and lower acquisition costs than closer-in San Antonio neighborhoods or almost anything near Austin. Add hundreds of millions of dollars in new industrial and logistics investment creating jobs directly along the corridor, plus a roughly $1.5 billion TxDOT highway expansion signaling long-term state investment in the area's growth, and it is easy to see why builders have concentrated so much of their pipeline here.

Major new construction communities along the corridor

Mayfair, developed by Southstar along I-35 north of Kohlenberg Road in New Braunfels, is one of the most significant projects on the corridor, a 1,900-acre, walkable master-planned community that began development in 2022. Its second neighborhood opened with builders including David Weekley Homes, Scott Felder Homes, Perry Homes, Highland Homes, Toll Brothers, and Coventry Homes, with base pricing starting around $290,000. D.R. Horton has since entered the community with homes starting near $300,000, and a single-family rental section is also planned. The community is served by Comal ISD, including Mayfair Elementary, which opened with roughly 200 students, and a middle school slated to open in 2027.

Veramendi, New Braunfels' other flagship master-planned community, offers a similarly broad range of builders and price points along the same growth corridor. Sunflower Ridge, also off I-35 in New Braunfels, has earned regional recognition for its interior merchandising and offers family-friendly floor plans on 60-foot homesites, with easy access to major employers along the corridor including a nearby Amazon distribution center and Walmart distribution center. Guadalupe Ridge offers a more affordable entry point in the same growing area, while Toll Brothers operates two distinct sections nearby, the Guadalupe Collection and the Comal Collection, at a higher price tier with larger, more customizable plans.

Further along toward Garden Ridge and the US 281 side of the corridor, communities like Johnson Ranch and Enchanted Bluff, the latter featuring Drees Custom Homes on one-acre Hill Country homesites, cater to buyers who want more land alongside their new construction. And in the middle of the corridor, Cibolo and Schertz each have their own deep new-construction pipelines, covered in detail in our dedicated guides to new construction in Cibolo and new construction in Schertz.

What new construction costs along the corridor

Entry-level new construction along the corridor generally starts in the high $200,000s to low $300,000s in communities like Mayfair and Guadalupe Ridge, with mainstream production pricing running through the $400,000s and $500,000s across most of the corridor's major communities. At the upper end, Toll Brothers' larger plans and custom builders on acreage lots like Enchanted Bluff can run well past $700,000 to over $1 million depending on lot size and finish level.

As a general pattern, pricing rises as you move from the more established inner corridor toward the newest, most amenity-rich communities near New Braunfels, though plenty of accessible options remain at every price point.

Understanding special tax districts along the corridor

This is one of the most important things to get right when buying new construction anywhere along this corridor. Many of the fastest-growing areas outside existing city limits rely on Water Control and Improvement Districts or Municipal Utility Districts to fund the roads, water, and infrastructure that make a new community possible, and Public Improvement Districts are also common in New Braunfels-area developments specifically.

 These districts add an assessment on top of standard county property tax rates, and the combined effective rate can vary significantly from one community to the next, even at similar price points. Always request the full total tax rate from the builder, not just the base county rate, before comparing communities or calculating your real monthly payment.

What buyers should know before signing

New construction in this corridor follows the same fundamentals as anywhere else in Texas, with a few details specific to this area worth extra attention.

New construction versus resale along the corridor

New construction across this corridor offers current floor plans, energy-efficient systems, and a builder warranty, generally with more predictable timelines than a custom build. Resale homes in more established communities like Schertz or inner Selma often come with mature landscaping, an already-settled neighborhood, and sometimes a lower effective tax rate outside a special district.

Plenty of corridor buyers end up touring both before deciding, and the right answer typically comes down to whether newness and amenities or an established, already-proven neighborhood matters more to your family.