Even Mehrdad Moayedi doesn’t get everything he wants.
The Mesquite City Council denied his firm Centurion American Development Group’s request to install a 30-foot sign for the Iron Horse Village development until more high-end retail and restaurants fill vacancies. But the developer hoped a sign would help attract tenants to the 54-acre mixed-use development in the first place.
Farmers Branch-based Centurion American, run by president and CEO Moayedi, requested permission to install the sign recently, but the council voted to postpone approval indefinitely, with one council member, Jeff Casper, saying the developer “supremely overpromised and underdelivered” on bringing quality retail to the project, the Dallas Business Journal reported.
The development already has 138 single-family homes, 198 townhomes and 26,000 square feet of raw retail space. Construction started in 2019, after the council granted a public improvement district, and Centurion is still planning commercial development on 10 acres of land.
Edge Realty Partners is leasing the retail space, and it’s been difficult to attract tenants. They thought the sign would help, said Perla Tavera, controller for Centurion American.
But the council wants to see further signals Centurion will work to attract nicer amenities to the development.
“My bigger issue with Centurion in this particular development is the idea that we were going to get retail and top-level restaurants, and what has ended up happening is fast service, a car wash and a built shopping center that has sat vacant while all the homes have been built,” Casper said.
Centurion American is a dominant player in North Texas real estate, known for its large-scale land buys and master-planned communities. Since its inception in 1990, the company has completed over 100,000 single-family lots.
The firm plans to construct more than 4,000 homes within the Alpha Ranch community along Highway 114 north of Fort Worth. Its other North Texas projects include Legacy Hills, a 3,200-acre master-planned community in Celina, and Cottonwood, a 1,500-acre master-planned community in Grayson County. — Eric Weilbacher
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