Years after it first hit the drawing board, Mark IV Capital’s massive vision for The District in Round Rock finally has serious cash behind it. The developer has closed an $86 million construction loan that will bankroll the project’s first vertical phase, a seven-story residential building with ground-floor retail and an early food-and-beverage plaza on a site long touted as a walkable live-work-play hub near Dell’s Round Rock campus. The deal marks the clearest sign yet that the once modest suburban concept has morphed into a multi-phase campus now expected to cost more than $500 million at full build-out.
Loan closes, financing partners named
The $86 million construction loan was led by BDT & MSD Partners, with an affiliate of Apollo Global Management also participating, according to The Real Deal. George Smith Partners, which announced the closing, says it arranged the financing, serving as placement agent and financial adviser for the deal and structuring the capital stack for Phase I.
Phase I: apartments, retail and a food plaza
The first phase revolves around a seven-story, 316-unit apartment building, designed with five wood-framed residential levels stacked on a two-level concrete podium and more than 23,000 square feet of ground-floor retail, as reported by ConnectCRE. Planned amenities for residents include a third-floor pool deck, cold plunge, dry sauna, fitness center, and clubhouse lounge. The phase also calls for a 40,750-square-foot food-and-beverage plaza made up of six standalone buildings, offering spaces that range from roughly 1,500 to nearly 12,000 square feet.
Where it sits and the plan's timeline
The District covers roughly 65.5 to 66 acres near the Interstate 35 and State Highway 45 interchange, next to Dell Technologies’ Round Rock headquarters, and city officials marked the start of infrastructure work with a March 6, 2025, groundbreaking, according to the City of Round Rock. The city’s development agreement, first approved in 2019, spells out performance milestones and targets full build-out around 2039, with infrastructure reimbursements tied to completed phases.
Why it matters for Round Rock
City and developer estimates indicate The District could support thousands of jobs and deliver a meaningful tax bump, with some projections topping 5,000 jobs at full build-out and roughly $40 million in net tax revenue over 20 years, according to local reporting by Community Impact. Round Rock has agreed to reimburse up to $25 million in infrastructure costs tied to the project’s milestones, a public investment aimed at speeding up the arrival of the retail and office space the developer is chasing.
What comes next
With vertical construction now funded, Mark IV and its partners are finalizing designs and courting tenants. CBRE is handling office leasing, Retail Street Advisors is charged with filling the retail spaces, and Greystar Real Estate Partners is set to manage the first multifamily building, per reporting summarized by STG Design. Developers have said infrastructure work would take about a year from the March 2025 groundbreaking, with the initial vertical elements expected to wrap up by early 2027, a timetable that will be tested as construction ramps up.
