Developer to build on other side of the bridge

Local developer Ali Ebrahimi is making no bones about his goal of snagging potential home buyers away from the super-sized Bridgeland community and to his planned lower-priced neighborhood nearby.

Ebrahimi, president of Houston-based Ersa Grae Corp., is blueprinting a 3,000-home community on 1,500 acres off of Fry Road and FM 529, adjacent to the 10,000-acre Bridgeland community in northwest Houston.

The yet-to-be named community represents Ebrahimi’s largest project since establishing Ersa Grae in Houston nearly 30 years ago.

By setting up shop right next to Bridgeland, Ebrahimi hopes to feed off of the traffic generated by the giant master-planned community — which is being described as “the second coming of The Woodlands.”

“The more traffic Bridgeland brings into the area, the better it is for us,” he says.

Bridgeland, which is being developed by real estate giant General Growth Properties Inc., is slated to include 21,000 single-family homes and will eventually include 65,000 residents. To date, 60 homes are occupied, and 302 lots have been sold to builders.

Ebrahimi believes his 10-person development firm will be able to compete with General Growth by building similar-sized homes on smaller lots — with fewer frills and lower price tags.

“We’re targeting families with children who are at the stage of their lives where they don’t care as much about a marble floor as they do about the utility and space of a house,” he says.

Ebrahimi’s community will offer homes ranging from 2,000 square feet to 5,000 square feet that will be priced from $150,000 to $300,000, while Bridgeland offers homes of the same size priced from $200,000 to more than $500,000.

“Since we are a local company and we don’t have the huge overhead costs, we’re able to be more flexible on the size of the houses and the size of the lots we offer,” Ebrahimi says.

Joe Necker, vice president of development of Chicago-based General Growth, says he isn’t surprised other developers are attempting to “tag along” by planning communities near Bridgeland.