Craig International has named Phoenix Hospitality Group as the developer for the $100 million Margaritaville Resort at Preston Harbor — the anchor hospitality component of the $7 billion master-planned community under development on 3,114 acres of Lake Texoma shoreline in Denison, Texas, approximately 75 miles north of Dallas. The resort’s first phase will feature 150 hotel rooms, 50 residential units including bungalows, cottages, and casitas, restaurants, entertainment venues, multiple swimming pools, and boat slips. Construction is projected to begin later in 2026 — contingent on completion of a key northern arterial road providing access to the resort — and is expected to take 12 to 18 months from start to finish. The broader Preston Harbor development is already underway: Centurion American Development Group broke ground on the residential portions of the site in October 2025 and is advancing infrastructure works, while Craig International has identified road construction as the critical-path item that will unlock the resort’s construction start.

The Resort Programme: 150 Hotel Rooms, Lakefront Residences, and Entertainment on Lake Texoma

The Margaritaville Resort at Preston Harbor has been designed to function simultaneously as a destination hotel, a residential community, and a lakefront entertainment hub — a programme that reflects the Margaritaville brand’s established formula of pairing the laidback leisure aesthetic of its namesake Jimmy Buffett song with full-service resort amenities and a residential product that allows guests to convert their visits into permanent or seasonal ownership. Phoenix Hospitality Group, the selected developer, will deliver the first phase with 150 hotel rooms positioned on the shore of Lake Texoma with views across the 90,000-acre reservoir. The 50 residential units — offered as bungalows, cottages, and casitas across a spectrum of sizes and price points — extend the Margaritaville lifestyle into long-term ownership, targeting second-home buyers from the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex who have historically had limited options for high-quality lakefront resort ownership within a day-trip or easy weekend drive of the city.

Project Fact Sheet: Margaritaville Resort at Preston Harbor

Project Name: Margaritaville Resort at Preston Harbor

Location: Preston Harbor master-planned community, Denison, Grayson County, Texas, USA (on Lake Texoma; ~75 miles north of Dallas)

Resort Developer: Phoenix Hospitality Group

Resort Cost: ~$100 million

Phase 1 Programme: 150 hotel rooms; 50 residential units (bungalows, cottages, casitas); restaurants; entertainment venues; multiple swimming pools; boat slips

Construction Timeline: 12–18 months from start

Construction Start (Resort): 2026 (conditional on northern arterial road completion)

Critical Path Item: Northern arterial road providing access to resort and development areas

Project Fact Sheet: Preston Harbor Master-Planned Community

Project Name: Preston Harbor

Location: Lake Texoma, Denison, Grayson County, Texas, USA

Total Land: 3,114 acres; site purchased January 2024 for $67.5 million

Lake Frontage: 9.5 miles shoreline on Lake Texoma + 27 internal lakes (4 larger than 25 acres)

Total Programme Value: ~$7 billion (assessed property value at buildout)

Homes Planned: ~7,500 (luxury single-family, active adult, multifamily)

Boat Slips: 900 (marina)

Groundbreaking (Residential): 17 October 2025 (Centurion American Development Group)

Residential Phase 1 Lot Delivery: End of 2026

Developer: Craig International (master developer) / Waterfall Development LP

Project History: Originated by George Schuler (died 12 April 2023); 20+ years of land assembly

Project Team: Preston Harbor / Margaritaville Resort

Master Developer: Craig International (McKinney, Texas)

David H. Craig: Founder, Chairman and CEO, Craig International

Partnership Vehicle: Waterfall Development LP

General Partners: David H. Craig; Dave Johnson (Horizon Capital Partners); Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Chief Gary Batton); N9 Capital Partners (Managing Partner: Nagesh Kamarsu)

Resort Developer: Phoenix Hospitality Group

Original Hospitality Lead: Horizon Capital Partners (Dave Johnson, former CEO of Aimbridge Hospitality)

Margaritaville Brand / Licensing: Margaritaville Hotels & Resorts (Jim Wiseman, President of Development)

Residential Developer (Phase 1): Centurion American Development Group (Mehrdad Moayedi)

Municipal Partner: City of Denison (Mayor Robert Crawley)

Land Assembly Origin: George Schuler / Schuler Development (~20-year land assembly)

Utilities: Oncor Electric Delivery (substation); Atmos Energy (gas); AT&T (fiber)

School Site: Denison Independent School District

The resort programme also includes restaurants, entertainment venues designed for live music and events, and multiple swimming pools — amenities that will serve both hotel guests and the broader Preston Harbor community. The boat slip component is particularly critical to the resort’s appeal: Lake Texoma is one of the largest reservoirs in the United States by surface area, yet direct private waterfront ownership is exceedingly rare because most of the lake’s 580-mile shoreline is owned and managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. George Schuler, whose two decades of patient land assembly created the Preston Harbor tract, was instrumental in securing approximately 600 acres of Corps of Engineers-owned land that gives the development ownership to the water’s edge — a feature that David Craig, founder, chairman, and CEO of Craig International, describes as fundamentally unique. The 900 total boat slips planned across the Preston Harbor marina will serve the resort, residential community, and general public, establishing Denison as a genuine lake destination rather than simply a lakeside community.

Twenty Years in the Making: Craig International, Centurion American, and the Partners Building Preston Harbor

Preston Harbor is, by any measure, a legacy project — and its origins stretch back more than two decades to the early 2000s, when Denison businessman George Schuler began quietly assembling parcels along the undeveloped western shore of Lake Texoma. Schuler spent roughly 20 years piecing together what would eventually become the 3,114-acre Preston Harbor tract, financing his acquisitions over a long period before illness forced him to pass the project to his trusted collaborator David Craig. Schuler died on 12 April 2023, eight months before Craig International formally closed on the assembled land for $67.5 million in January 2024 — a transaction that Grayson County officials called one of the largest land purchases in the county’s history. Craig, who promised Schuler he would fulfil and expand the vision, has described building Preston Harbor as the project of his professional life.

The partnership structure assembled by Craig International for Preston Harbor reflects the project’s multi-decade scale. Waterfall Development LP, the master partnership entity, includes Craig International as master developer alongside the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma — which brings deep regional economic development experience and a stake in the transformative impact the project will have on the border economy — and N9 Capital Partners, represented by Managing Partner Nagesh Kamarsu. Dave Johnson, founder of Horizon Capital Partners and former CEO of Plano-based Aimbridge Hospitality (one of the largest hotel management companies in the world), is both a general partner in Preston Harbor and the original hospitality lead for the Margaritaville resort component. Centurion American Development Group, led by Dallas developer Mehrdad Moayedi, entered as the residential development partner in late 2025 and broke ground in October 2025 on the portion of the site that will eventually yield more than 1,200 home sites. Lots are expected to be delivered to homebuilders by end of 2026, with the residential component ultimately planned to include roughly 7,500 homes across luxury single-family, active adult, multifamily, and lakefront categories.

Denison, the Semiconductor Boom, and Preston Harbor’s Economic Case

Denison is a city of approximately 28,000 people that, until recently, sat comfortably outside the primary orbit of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan growth machine. That changed with the announcement, and subsequent construction, of major semiconductor fabrication facilities in nearby Sherman — approximately 20 miles to the southwest — anchored by Texas Instruments and additional chipmakers attracted by the city’s growing reputation as a high-technology manufacturing hub. The semiconductor investments are expected to generate thousands of high-paying manufacturing and engineering jobs in Grayson County, drawing a new professional workforce whose housing preferences and recreational demands are materially different from the county’s historical profile. Preston Harbor’s developers have explicitly cited semiconductor-driven demand as a tailwind for the development, positioning the project’s timeline to capture the first wave of demand from workers and families relocating to the Texoma region for the new industry. This surge in lifestyle-oriented development is also reaching the Gulf Coast, as seen with the news that a Sports Illustrated Resort is coming to Lago Mar in Texas City, TX, a project designed to anchor a major lagoon-centered entertainment district.

If Preston Harbor is built as envisioned over its multi-decade programme, it would roughly double the population of Denison — adding an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 residents in a community that currently numbers fewer than 30,000 — while generating approximately $7 billion in assessed property value and transforming the city’s tax base. Denison Mayor Robert Crawley has described the development as giving the city a commercial and residential tax revenue foundation that will fund decades of improved city services, infrastructure, and quality of life investment. The broader Texoma corridor is also seeing parallel investment from the Oklahoma side: the $2 billion Pointe Vista master-planned community west of Durant, Oklahoma, includes a Hard Rock Hotel and three planned resorts, making Lake Texoma — a body of water straddling the Texas-Oklahoma state line — one of the most active inland resort development zones in the central United States.