Shaun Vembutty | Ashton Gray Development” with “Texas development West of Houston
Shaun Vembutty is primarily concerned with the quality, architectural design, and location of Ashton Gray Development’s spec homes and commercial projects. A collaborative leader, Shaun Vembutty works closely with top ranking architects and his highly experienced construction crew to deliver the best product possible.
The I-35 corridor between Austin and San Antonio has been one of the fastest growing regions in the continental U.S. for over a decade, and it still remains virtually barren of skilled labor availability for small-scale residential building projects. In a geographical zone with a 40 mile radius, many families are settling down here to escape the rising real estate taxes and awful traffic jams of Austin or the big city crime rate of San Antonio.
Home values in once remote areas are steadily climbing. Highway exits are added every season, and the 80 mile long corridor, once a long stretch of a drive sparsely speckled with a restaurant here and a gas station there now sports huge retail outlets such as Cabela’s that put Buda on the map in 2010 and a Giant Bucees Gas Station in New Braunfels that attracts road-trippers from all over. Now, sprawling residential communities are visible from the highway for miles and there are really no remote areas void of development for the entire driving stretch like there were just 10 years ago. However, if you have chosen one of these little clusters of communities to be your hometown, good luck finding a house painter who will ‘drive’ to San Marcos to complete a quick interior job before your new flooring arrives.
Carpenters needed for small home repairs in this region are also in high demand, giving rise to ‘fly-by-night’ operations that throw a fence together with staples, only to be no longer in business when the boards begin popping off a month later. Even white-collar specialties such as those in the medical industry are scarce here, offering one or two options for pediatricians in each community that was once considered a small town and is experiencing some lag in catching up with the demand of the residents.
Appointment availability for specialists run two to three months out, and thus EVERY one of these ‘small towns’ has a huge urgent care clinic to pick up that business. Wouldn’t it be more valuable to the community as a whole if some of these specialists (in all of the needed fields) got with the program and started putting in roots in what is obviously going to be a very prominent and booming region of Texas? It is already comparable to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, of which there is now no discernible transition zone between the two cities anymore, and they are considered one in the same.
Folks that occupy these skilled service fields will soon realize that moving out of the densely populated zones and servicing the sprawling area between the two metropolitan areas will prove not only helpful to the communities in need of these services, but also to their own overall profit margins when they realize the competition is not currently there. Rent costs are certainly cheaper for small businesses and the appreciation they will receive from consumers that will inevitably become repeat customers over the course of generations will prove worth the couple of years it takes to become established.
Ashton Gray Development (AGD) has launched a long overdue project to meet the demand of Houston’s vast (and grow-ing) retired Indian population for an upscale, gated community complete with all amenities. The plan layout is already completed and the first phase for the Aliana location is almost sold out. AGD is in the business of luxury home building and Taj Residences will be no exception. Shaun Vembutty, Founding President of AGD upcom-ing development gives an overview of his passion behind the project that’s gaining popularity. Shaun Vembutty was born and brought up in Chennai, India and came to the U.S. in 1997 where he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science at LSU, Baton Rouge. After graduating, he went into IT and started his own consulting firm for a few years, and later transitioned into real estate. Since then, he has been involved in real estate development in Houston for close to a decade now. His companies, Ashton Gray
Homes and Ashton Gray Development are primarily centered on the development of luxury spec homes between $2–7 million. In addition to home building, they are also involved with several commercial projects from hotel development to retail shopping centers.
