Development money is flowing near the nation’s biggest university after Texas ended familial occupancy rules — and projects are facing a market shift that may follow the deregulation.
Adam Development Properties is spending $45 million to build Copperfield Drive Apartments, a 360-unit development at 4251 Boonville Road in Bryan, part of the Texas A&M University metropolitan area. The project is about five miles from campus.
College Station-based Adam Development, led by Andrew Ball, director of real estate, and John Ben Blackburn, senior vice president, plans to start the project in March and complete it by January 2028, according to a plan filed in December with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The estimated cost amounts to $125,000 per unit, though TDLR filings are preliminary and subject to change.
It’s the most expensive multifamily project on record for Bryan. It’s also the most expensive plan for multifamily or student housing filed since Texas ended bans on “stealth dorms,” as one ordinance called them. Earlier this year, the legislature passed a prohibition on relationship-based occupancy codes in college towns with populations of less than 250,000 — a law aimed squarely at College Station and Bryan, home to Texas A&M University and one of its feeder schools, Blinn College.
With an annual enrollment exceeding 70,000 students, Texas A&M has the largest in-person student body in the country. However, in the past few years, College Station and Bryan enforced occupancy restrictions that forbade more than four unrelated people to share a home outside of certain permitted neighborhoods. In College Station, the “no-more-than-four” rule applied to apartments as well.
As part of a broader effort to free up housing supply, the legislature halted enforcement of these local ordinances beginning in September.
The end of the “no-more-than-four” rule presents an opportunity to rent to more occupants — and the market shows signs that property owners are taking it.
In November, the latest month on record for Zillow, area rents dropped by $7, month-over-month. While only a modest decline for the average renter, it’s the first time since 2016 that rents declined at all in November — a notable skip in the college town’s clockwork seasonal trends.
Additionally, in October, the month after the law took effect, the number of rental properties in the county jumped 18 percent, year-over-year, according to Realtor.com.
As a result, it’s easier to fill five-bedroom or six-bedroom apartments in College Station. On the other hand, multifamily projects planned in advance of 2025 now face competition from an unleashed reserve of detached homes.
Adam Development has owned the land slated for Copperfield Drive Apartments since 2003, according to public records. The company did not immediately respond for comment.Not long before the “no-more-than-four” rule ended, Texas developer Parallel also began work on a 23-story student housing building on Boyett Street with an estimated cost of $59 million, and Subtext started on a two-phase student housing development two blocks from campus, with the estimated cost of the first phase alone exceeding $60 million.
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