Residential Development Could Boost Wise County City Population

A new residential development could mean a massive population boom for a small Wise County city.

Right now, Rhome is home to about 1,600 people, but plans for a new housing development on the city's east side would bring more than a thousand new homes to the area — more than doubling the city's size.

"We currently have 14 employees; 15 volunteers with the fire department, so with that much growth we’ll need to see additional increases in staffing to accommodate the growth," said Mayor Michelle Pittman. "We have 550 water accounts currently. By the end of the construction, 1,100 additional water accounts would triple the number of accounts we have, so Public Works would see significant increases on demand."

Briscoe and Company is the real estate development company behind the project. Owner Jim Briscoe told Rhome's City Council this week he hopes to break ground on the first few dozen homes by next autumn. Eventually, the development will extend to more 1100 homes over 350 acres, over a period of 10-years.

"We’ll have to build the roads for the infrastructure, we are working on the funding and financing for the roads," Pittman said. "We'll have to accommodate all those homes into the wastewater system."

The developer has plans to build one new school, too.

"With 1100 new homes, we’d expect we’d need at least one other school. Currently we have one elementary school, one middle school, and we have a site for a high school that hasn’t been built yet," Pittman said. "He has included a site for an elementary school."

Pittman said the homes are expected to sell from $225,000 to $350,000.

"This is a huge deal. We have never experienced this type of growth," she said. "Our property tax base will increase significantly. It's mind-blogging."

The developer told city council this week Rhome is the kind of small-town, bedroom community that's prime for growth. With hundreds of residents commuting to jobs in Dallas or Fort Worth, it's exactly the kind of community that new residents with young families want to move into.

"Rhome is a small town. It’s a bedroom community, a lot of families work in Dallas-Fort Worth. It’s a small town here, everyone knows everyone. And people are drawn to that," Pittman agreed.

The plan is to break ground next autumn.