The History of Pointe 2.3.4.
More than a decade ago, Kirbyjon Caldwell started looking for 20 acres to build a 24-hour prayer center.
The center still hasn’t been built, but it’s not because Caldwell abandoned his plans.
He simply took them in a different direction.
Instead of buying 20 acres, Caldwell purchased 234 for $1.3 million and oversaw the development of more than 450 homes, a 200,000-square-foot community center, retail space, medical facilities, schools and a YMCA. A 124-unit senior housing project is under construction, and a new sanctuary and the prayer center are planned for 2010 and 2011.
His motivation for the project, he said, was biblical.
“The first thing God told Adam and Eve to do is economic development — till the soil and add value,” Caldwell said on a tour of his development, called Pointe 2.3.4.
Real estate developer Ed Wulfe said Caldwell has energized the community like he did with the Power Center, a business development and commercial center he established on South Post Oak in the mid-1990s.
“It’s been a major catalyst in the area,” Wulfe said about Pointe 2.3.4. “In a very challenged area, he’s been able to instill development and help mobilize people to make things happen.”
The project has created more than $68 million in taxable value with the improvements that have been made, said Genora Boykins, chair of Pyramid Community Development Corp., the nonprofit set up to develop the project and Power Center. Before development started, the land had an agricultural tax exemption.
Caldwell, who became pastor of Windsor Village Church in the early 1980s, is a Wharton MBA with a Wall Street background.
He said everyone who put Pointe 2.3.4 together worked as a volunteer. No one received development or consulting fees, including Caldwell, who has never drawn a salary from it.
The residential portion of the project, called Corinthian Pointe, contains hundreds of homes built in several phases by Ryland Homes and smaller minority-owned builders.
The streets in the subdivision have names like Majesty, Miracle and Dream.
Despite the real estate slump, few of the houses are on the market there and Caldwell said there has never been a foreclosure.
Most of the homes there are geared toward low- to moderate-income buyers.
Source: nancy.sarnoff@chron.com
