Seven years ago, a development manager from ASA Properties stood in front of the New Braunfels Hispanic Business Alliance and described what Veramendi would become. Retail. Restaurants. Trails that led somewhere. Two regional parks, each bigger than Landa Park once you subtract the golf course. A partnership with Howard Payne University. Enough Class A office space that New Braunfels could finally keep the jobs it had been losing to San Antonio and Austin.
If you live in Veramendi today, you already know which parts of the 2019 vision have taken shape. The homes came fast, while commercial businesses have arrived more gradually. Walk the commercial strip along Oak Run Parkway right now and you'll find exactly one full-service restaurant, in a community with thousands of residents and a build-out plan for roughly 6,000 homes. It is a snapshot of how this neighborhood functions day to day.
The 2019 presentation and what has followed
That presentation to the Chamber of Commerce committee got specific in ways that were easy to picture: nearly 488 acres of parkland and trails, a vision for a commercial core you could walk to, office space that would compete for real jobs. Most of what ASA Properties promised on the residential and green-space side has shown up close to schedule. Veramendi's development agreement with the city, signed February 25, 2013, laid out a roughly 2,400-acre mixed-use project, and the home-building side of that agreement has moved faster than most master-planned communities manage.
The commercial side has moved more gradually. Here's the comparison:
| What the 2019 presentation described | What exists as of fall 2026 |
|---|---|
| A walkable retail and dining core | One full-service restaurant, breakfast. |
| Two regional parks bigger than Landa Park | Zero regional parks broken ground; Word Park still in design |
| A second resident amenity center | The Outlook, delayed from a June-July 2026 target to "late 2026" |
| Class A office space and a Howard Payne partnership | Howard Payne University has a location near the restaurant strip; the office space hasn't materialized |
| A 48-acre business district | Still described as a future phase on the community's own site |
None of this means the plan stalled. It means homebuilding moved ahead while commercial development followed more gradually.
Why homes finished first and storefronts didn't
The mismatch has a straightforward mechanical explanation, and it is worth understanding if you have ever wondered why your neighborhood feels finished on the social side and unfinished on the retail side. Homebuilders sign contracts, pour foundations, and close on a schedule that answers to demand they already have in hand. Retail tenants, especially the kind of sit-down restaurant most residents actually want, sign leases based on rooftops that exist today, not rooftops promised for 2030. Veramendi is currently planned for roughly 6,000 dwelling units at full build-out and is less than halfway there, with more than a decade of development still ahead. A restaurant group deciding whether to open a second location does that math before signing anything.
The Veramendi Retail Center at 2164 and 2168 Oak Run Parkway is a useful example of how slowly that math resolves. It's a 12,564-square-foot building delivered back in 2023, fully leased to four tenants split across education, real estate, food and beverage, and community services. Three years after delivery, it's still the only sizable retail building inside Veramendi's own boundary, and the food and beverage tenant in it is the same restaurant most residents already know.
Where residents actually go
If you're new here, the honest answer to "where do we eat" is short. breakfast. opened August 4, 2024, at 2168 Oak Run Parkway, owned by Joe and Sarah Silvernail, and it's still described on Veramendi's own materials as the community's first restaurant, a title it has now held for two years. It's open 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends, which covers breakfast and brunch and nothing later in the day.
For dinner, or a glass of wine that isn't poured in your own kitchen, most residents drive a few minutes into Town Creek, a separate New Braunfels neighborhood, where Wine Folks opened this summer. Owners Danielle and Jason Grantham built a wine bar and bottle shop at 967 N. Academy Ave, stocked with roughly 75 wines including several Texas labels, plus craft beer and a lounge meant for slower evenings. It isn't part of Veramendi and never will be, but it's become the default answer for an evening out.
The other regular stop is Oak Run Plaza, a separate shopping center at Hwy 46 and Oak Run Parkway with more everyday tenants: Smokey Mo's BBQ, Smile Workshop, Matador's Men's Grooming, Leaf & Barrel, and Mystique Nails & Spa, among others. None of it sits inside Veramendi's gates, but all of it sits close enough to be part of the neighborhood's actual routine.
The gathering that didn't wait for a lease
What's easy to miss, if you're only counting storefronts, is that Veramendi's social calendar didn't wait around for the retail to catch up. Cohere, the HOA's management partner, keeps an on-site office and runs the kind of recurring, low-key programming that doesn't need a ribbon cutting: Mahjong nights, Bunco groups, coffee socials, and Food Truck Fridays that pull residents out of their houses on an ordinary weeknight. New residents get a visit through the Warm Welcome program, which delivers a pie along with information about what's happening in the neighborhood.
Layered on top of that are four signature events that anchor the year: Spring Fling, Patriots and Picnics, Fall Jubilee, and Hill Country Holidays. Each one is built around the season rather than a fixed script, which is part of why a resident who's been here three years can still find something new at Fall Jubilee even though the format is familiar by now.
There's also a smaller detail that says something about how the neighborhood was actually built. Early in development, the team preserved a large tree rather than clearing it. Kids climb it now, the way kids climb any good tree. Garrett Mechler, one of Veramendi's co-CEOs, has said the intent from day one was to build community connection into the decisions, not just the amenities. "Veramendi is very active, connected and rooted in community," he said in a sponsored Community Impact article describing the neighborhood's lifestyle programming. Whatever you think of the restaurant count, the social infrastructure here didn't wait for the commercial infrastructure to arrive. It ran on its own, faster track.
What's actually moving this fall
If you've been checking for updates on the two amenities everyone asks about, here's where things stand. The Outlook, Veramendi's second resident amenity center, was reported in March 2026 as targeting a groundbreaking at the end of Q2 or start of Q3, essentially a June-to-July window. That window has passed. The community's own current site language now describes construction as "projected in late 2026," a later target than what was floated in the spring. The plans themselves haven't changed: a roughly 12,000-square-foot campus with a terraced pool, pickleball courts, a 3,000-square-foot clubhouse, and a hillside site overlooking the future Word Park.
Word Park has followed a similar pattern. A December 2025 announcement described the regional park as a 65-plus-acre project set to break ground in early 2026. The advertised size has since grown to 76 acres in the community's current materials, which suggests the design is still being finalized rather than the project having stalled outright. As of now, there's no confirmed construction start date on Veramendi's own site.
Closer to home, if you've noticed lane closures near the Hwy 46 and Oak Run Parkway intersection, that's the Oak Run Intersection Improvements Project, which began June 15, 2026. The outside westbound lane on Hwy 46 and the eastbound right-turn lane were slated to reopen after roughly three months, putting that closer to now. The single-lane restriction on southbound Oak Run Parkway, between the neighborhood and Hunters Creek, was expected to run about four months, putting its likely reopening closer to October. Widened sidewalks and shared-use paths are part of the same project, which should make the walk to breakfast. a little easier once the cones come down.
None of this changes the basic shape of life in Veramendi right now. The homes arrived on schedule. The businesses are still catching up. The neighbors filled the space in between, and at this point, that's less a workaround than the actual character of the place.
If you're a Veramendi resident who's ever wondered what all this means for your home's value, or you're weighing a move within the neighborhood as it keeps growing, Diana Colbath knows this corridor block by block and can walk you through what your home is worth today.
