What was Plano like in the early 2000s before the rise of Frisco, Allen, and other areas (Dallas: houses, neighborhoods)

[Sooners9354]

I’ve been living in Collin County for over 16 years, I was 4 years old when me and my family moved to Wylie when it just small, now it’s growing but back then there was lots of land before new neighborhoods were being built. So what was Plano like in the early to mid 2000s before the rise of Frisco, Allen, and some other areas?

[Katana49]

By the end of the 80's, Plano basically stopped at Legacy, the only development north of Legacy was Deerfield. By the 90's, it had spread to McDermott. By the 2000's growth filled in to 121 and had also filled in the areas between Preston and the tollway, and then pushed west past that.



Still several homesteads from some of Plano's earliest families in 2000, now most of them have sold and filled in with commercial zoning, housing developments, senior living centers, etc.



2000-2005 was a pretty good time to be in Plano... roads had been expanded, and the traffic wasn't nearly the crush it is now as not everything was developed yet. By 2010 things had exploded, and I didn't want to live there anymore, just too busy and home prices had shot up.

[turf3]

Ever seen the Stepford Files?

When there was a big scandal about heroin related deaths in Plano, we Dallasites used to say ”If I had to live in Plano I'd use heroin too.”

Miles and miles of cookie cutter subdivisions filled with people congratulating themselves on living in Plano, punctuated every mile with a half-empty strip center containing a tanning salon, a dentist office, a discount cigarette store, and a storefront church.

Has it changed since then?

[stephwin]

Basically the same as other cities that are just now developing. There was a lot more empty land that eventually turned into neighborhoods or shopping centers. Google Earth has an historical view option that's fun to look at.

I moved to Prosper in the late 80s as a kid, so I'm pretty familiar with Prosper, Frisco, and Plano from that time. There used to be a horse farm at the corner of Parker/Preston. There are houses and a church there now. Preston used to be a single lane road at 121, and there was a tree farm on the SE corner before all the restaurants and stores were built. My mom used to drive to Plano every week for groceries before Brookshire's and Albertsons opened in Frisco.

[tmtex]

Colin Creek mall was BIG TIME

[20Hope20]

Plano was considered “middle of nowhere” and “north of the loop” but now it’s middle of everything. North side’s boom made it more central and important than it used to be.

[Katana49]

Originally Posted by 20Hope20

Plano was considered “middle of nowhere” and “north of the loop” but now it’s middle of everything. North side’s boom made it more central and important than it used to be.

Nah, McKinney was middle of nowhere in the 80's and 90's, Plano was adjacent to Allen and Richardson development.

[ChristieP]

I worked in the Telecom Corridor in the 1990s, and most of my coworkers lived in Plano. I was the rebel who lived in Dallas! Then our company moved its HQ to Legacy Drive, which was the edge of the prairie and took me an hour to get there up the DNT every day. When 9/11 happened, and the telecom industry crashed, my entire division was laid off. Good times...

But yeah, anything north of Legacy Drive was still cow pastures. Frisco was still a small town back then, and The Colony was quite literally a frontier outpost. 121 was a 2-lane road!

[TheOverdog]

I moved to DFW to work in the Plano area in 2000, had college friends and relatives who lived there in the 1980s and 1990s, and had an aunt who has lived in Allen since 1984 that we visited regularly.



It wasn't that different than in 2000 than it is now. By 2003 or so Collin Creek Mall was on its way out. Stonebriar Mall in Frisco was completed in 2000. The area I lived in west Plano near the tollway was mostly built out, but there were empty blocks just like there still are. First car I purchased was from a car dealership on 121. Main difference was downtown Plano was really empty and dumpy.


Now Frisco didn't have much north past the mall, so it has grown a bunch. All my friends who grew up in Plano said there used to a stripclub/whorehouse (no idea if true- they would have been kids so certainly never visited) at the corner of Preston and 121. They also used to play soccer on the land where Collin Creek Mall was before it was built.


If you look at the early plans for the 15th Street/Collin Creek Mall area, they had it slated for residential high rises. Standing alone like the office buildings around it are today.

[RonnieinDallas]

I don’t think it looks a lot different in East Plano. Most of the development post 2000 was on the west side. The Shops at Willowbend opened right after September 11th. That mall was so nice. It never really recovered. It’s a shame because it was beautifully done. That property is sort of a white elephant, and a good example of developer hubris, and lack of local knowledge.

Everything along the DNT north of Parker was new then or didn’t exist. Way more open land and Plano had way more of a cachet attached to it than it does now. I don’t even think you could compare it to any other area being developed now. People from Plano loved saying they were from Plano then.