The first residents moved into Jovie Lakeway on Sunday, officially opening a 210-unit active adult community that sits at the heart of one of the Austin area's most ambitious small-town building projects. The 55-and-up complex at 50 Bella Toscana Ave. offers one- and two-bedroom apartment homes, and its arrival marks a visible milestone in a downtown buildout that has been years in the making.
Lakeway’s age profile gives the 55-plus project a distinctly local context: adults 65 and older make up 23% of the city’s population, compared with 10.4% in Austin. That means older adults already represent a substantially larger share of Lakeway residents than of Austin residents, although Jovie’s 55-plus audience is broader than the Census Bureau’s 65-and-older measure. The comparison comes from the Census Bureau’s population profiles.
The 5.7-acre project has an amenity list aimed squarely at an older demographic: a fitness and yoga studio, a resort-style pool, a pickleball court, an outdoor lounge and gaming court, a business center, an on-site market, and weekly events at the community clubhouse. Interested renters can find more details at the community's website, jovielakeway.com.
Why the Age Restriction Stuck Around
There's a regulatory wrinkle behind the 55-plus label. Lakeway City Council approved Amendment 8 to the Tuscan Village Planned Unit Development in March 2025, removing the mandatory age restriction on the property so developers could tap a wider range of multifamily financing tools, the same Community Impact report noted. The property continues to offer active-adult programming.
The age label also sits within a federal fair-housing framework. The Housing for Older Persons Act exemption generally requires that at least 80% of occupied units have at least one resident who is 55 or older, along with policies showing the community is intended for older adults and regular age verification. Those standards are separate from a city’s zoning rules: removing a mandatory age restriction from the PUD does not, by itself, erase a community’s own age-focused leasing or programming. HUD’s guidance on 55-and-older housing outlines the federal requirements.
The Jovie brand has other Central Texas properties in Pflugerville and Belterra. Inside the same Tuscan Village sector, plans outlined a 21-unit townhome project featuring nine duplexes and one triplex in May 2025, but Jovie Lakeway is the only rentable property in Tuscan Village.
One Piece of a Much Larger City Center
Jovie Lakeway sits inside the Square at Lakeway, a 63-acre planned development intended to serve as the city's downtown center.
The city’s development framework envisions a broader mix than apartments alone. Its design manual describes about 392,000 square feet of commercial, retail and office space and up to 366 residences across the Square at Lakeway/Lohmans Crossing PUD, including single-family homes, townhomes and flats. The city’s PUD overview also allows for a hotel, park, restaurants and retail, framing the project as a planned civic and commercial center as well as a housing development. The city’s design manual sets out the development’s scale and mix.
Infrastructure work on the surrounding area is still catching up. The city issued a notice to proceed to Joe Bland Construction in August for Main Street roadway grading and underground utility trenching, part of a master town center project that broke ground in 2022 after years in planning dating to the 2010s. The Main Street corridor, which will connect Ranch Road 620 to Lohmans Crossing Road and include a central traffic roundabout, is targeted for completion in early 2027, pending final approvals for a new regional wastewater lift station from Travis County Water Control and Improvement District No. 17.
Money has been a sticking point for that broader vision. A nearly $47 million incentive request for The Square at Lakeway was discussed in January, but the developer later withdrew it after public comment and council scrutiny. Lakeway adopted a new incentive policy in June 2026. Hoodline covered the city's incentive debate as council members weighed how far to go in courting the project's backers.
What Renters Will Pay
Jovie Lakeway floor plans range from 657 to 1,282 square feet.
