Who signs off on a grocery-anchored town center that sits inside McGregor's city limits, is surrounded by the City of Waco, and borders an airport? A buyer looking at the 88.744-acre tract at 27300 W. Highway 84 has to answer that before running a single rent assumption. On the City of McGregor's own agenda archive, the last posted agenda for the board that decides land use there is dated September 25, 2023.
The tract is for sale again, priced at $6.9 million, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald. That comes to roughly $77,750 an acre. The obvious read is that the price rides on everything opening around it. Within a short drive there's a new Baylor Scott & White clinic, a Coryell Health medical building nearing its projected finish, a Fidelity Bank headquarters, and Harris Creek Baptist Church. The anchors are real, but they're the kind that bring people in for an appointment and send them home. The 88 acres were planned around a different kind of demand, and that demand hasn't arrived on the same schedule.
The neighbors are destination users
Here's how the cluster has come together along this stretch of Highway 84, in order:
- October 15, 2025. Baylor Scott & White opened its McGregor Harris Creek facility with family and pediatric clinics, lab testing, and X-ray, the day after a ribbon cutting, KWTX reported.
- October 16, 2025. Coryell Health broke ground on a 30,000-square-foot clinic and physical therapy center at Highway 84 and Harris Creek Road. The state's TDLR registration lists the project at 400 Harris Creek Road as 27,920 square feet with an estimated completion of November 6, 2026. Coryell's own messaging points to a late 2026 opening.
- November 30, 2026, estimated. Fidelity Bank's 10,088-square-foot building at 27325 W. Highway 84, across from the airport, carries this estimated completion date in its TDLR filing. The bank has described the building as its headquarters, near Harris Creek Baptist Church, according to the Tribune-Herald.
The two later dates are estimates filed with the state. Neither one is an announced opening. The pattern still holds whatever the final ribbon-cutting dates turn out to be. Clinics, a bank headquarters, and a church all draw people on purpose, by appointment or on a set schedule. They pull trips from across the western side of the county. They don't depend on homes within walking distance. Their staff and patients add daytime traffic at the intersection, and that helps a fuel stop or a lunch counter. It doesn't by itself support a grocery store, a hotel, and townhomes.
What the 88 acres were supposed to be
Austin-based KBar Group made its plan for the tract public in 2023. "The Concourse" was a mixed-use project with a grocery store, restaurants, a hotel, office and retail space, and residences. A KBar spokesperson told KWTX "The goal is for people to have a walkable area where they can pretty much walk from their home and go grab a taco or a pizza."
That describes retail that depends on rooftops, which is a different demand base from the destination users opening around the site now. A walkable grocery-and-restaurant core needs residents close enough to make the walk. The plan tried to put them on the property itself. In July 2023, the Joint Airport Administrative Agency, which includes officials from both Waco and McGregor, approved zoning standards that removed the tract's industrial and duplex uses and capped housing at 25 units per acre. KWTX reported the cap as a way to limit apartments while still allowing a mix of apartments and townhomes. Before that change, the land was zoned for industrial use, duplexes, and commercial and office use.
The same KWTX report noted two open items. First, KBar still needed final zoning approval. Second, McGregor's city manager said traffic patterns at Highway 84 and Bosque Lane needed more discussion. No construction start date was set. Now the land is listed again, and when the Tribune-Herald reached out, KBar hadn't returned messages seeking comment. The public record doesn't explain why the project didn't move forward. A buyer should treat that as the first question to ask the seller.
The board that holds the pen
This is the friction that changes the underwriting. As the Tribune-Herald describes it, the tract falls within McGregor city limits while Waco's city limits surround it, and a joint Waco and McGregor zoning board decides land use. Public notices give the board's formal name as the Joint Airport Zoning Board of the McGregor Executive Airport, and they cite a Rule 11 Agreement between the two cities and Ordinance O-01-2023 as the framework for zoning changes on airport property.
The arrangement has deep roots. The airport was a McGregor asset as far back as 1947, when the city acquired the former facility. In a 1975 Texas Supreme Court decision, the court voided a 1966 McGregor ordinance that tried to annex a narrow Highway 84 strip along with the airport, finding that the strip intruded into Waco's extraterritorial jurisdiction. Decades later, land use around the airport still goes through a body both cities share.
The board has looked at this exact tract before. Its April 24, 2023 agenda covered utility capacity studies and a possible change to the planned-unit-development concept plan for the 88.744 acres at 27300 W. Highway 84 near Bosque Lane. The September 25, 2023 agenda called for a public hearing and possible action on zoning and land-use changes under the ordinance. Those are the last airport board agendas on the city's archive page. The airport's Administrative Agency shows only June and July 2023 entries. Meanwhile, McGregor's TIRZ boards have posted agendas as recently as September 28, 2026.
The marketing for the land mentions a mixed-use overlay. What a buyer actually needs is the adopted document behind that overlay, the concept plan it ties to, and whether that plan assumed KBar's program specifically. If a new buyer has a different program in mind, the path likely runs back through a joint board that hasn't posted publicly in about three years. That means two cities' staff, notice periods, and a traffic question at Bosque Lane that was never publicly settled. Count that time in the carry cost.
McGregor attaches strings to land it has touched
The town core shows how this plays out. A 4,816-square-foot 7-Eleven with fuel is registered with TDLR at U.S. 84 and Main Street, with construction scheduled from August 1, 2026 to May 1, 2027. That sale couldn't close until the McGregor City Council, at a September 28, 2026 special meeting, released an option and right of repurchase or first refusal held over Sensato LLC's corner parcel. City staff described it as a clawback the city originally used to enforce site commitments.
The 88 acres and the Main Street corner are separate deals with separate histories. They do have something in common. In McGregor, the price on a parcel can depend on public conditions a title search turns up and a site visit doesn't. The 7-Eleven went through because the council voted to lift those conditions.
The rooftop signal to watch
If the 88 acres depend on residents nearby, the useful number to track is plats, not clinic openings. McGregor's October 5, 2026 Planning and Zoning agenda listed an 80.14-acre preliminary plat for Cotton Belt Farms on Cotton Belt Parkway, with a City Council public hearing set for October 19. It also listed a new conceptual plan application for the Country Trails residential subdivision, which had been on the September 14 council agenda as well. Neither agenda gives a lot count. These subdivisions are in McGregor proper, not at the airport, so the question for the tract is how many homes end up within a short drive of Bosque Lane and when.
Before making an offer on the tract or anything near it, get answers to these:
- What zoning and concept plan were actually adopted after the 2023 hearings, and do they bind a new owner to KBar's program?
- Who is the current point of contact for the Joint Airport Zoning Board, and how long would a new concept plan realistically take?
- Were the April 2023 utility capacity studies finished, and what did they find?
- What would TxDOT and the two cities require at Highway 84 and Bosque Lane for access?
- Do any repurchase rights, development covenants, or incentive obligations run with the land?
This is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Confirm zoning, title, and incentive terms with a qualified attorney and the appropriate city staff.
FAQ
Is the Coryell Health clinic open yet? Its TDLR registration estimates completion on November 6, 2026, and Coryell Health has pointed to a late 2026 opening. Watch for an announced opening date from Coryell Health itself.
Does the Fidelity Bank building mean a branch is coming to McGregor? The bank has described the 27325 W. Highway 84 building as a headquarters, with an estimated completion of November 30, 2026 on its state filing.
Why does a McGregor property go through a joint board? The airport area is governed under a Rule 11 Agreement between Waco and McGregor and Ordinance O-01-2023, and a Joint Airport Zoning Board handles land-use changes there.
If you're weighing the Harris Creek stretch of Highway 84, either the 88 acres or the smaller frontage around the new clinics, Kelly Realtors Commercial can help you sort out what the entitlement record supports, what the anchors actually draw, and what the rooftop pipeline means for your timeline. Let's Get Started.
