Multi-family complexes are still making news in Lake Highlands, but the headlines are beginning to change. Many of these properties are slated to be redeveloped, says Councilman Bill Blaydes.

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• Lincoln Properties has the Northwest Terrace apartments at Northwest Highway and Plano Road under contract, and the plan is to develop the property into townhouses.

• More townhouses and zero-lot houses plus retail offices are expected to be built at the corner of Forest and Central Expressway.

• The five multi-family complexes on the northeast and southeast corners of Skillman and Walnut Hill also are under contract. If the deal goes through, Blaydes says a developer — the seventh one to consider the property — will turn it into “the town center project.”

Some of these projects will include condos and apartments, but “they will be at a higher dollar value than we’re seeing right now,” Blaydes says. The main point, he says, is that completely new styles of housing are about to be introduced to our neighborhood.

“It’s an urbanization of those market areas. There’s no doubt about that,” he says. “Most of these developers have done these types of projects in Uptown; they’re just moving farther north because pricing in Uptown has gotten so outrageous.”

The projects will commence sometime in 2007 and be completed in 2009, Blaydes says. No doubt they will change the face of Lake Highlands, but don’t expect to see apartment complexes disappear.

“We will never lose the multi-family units,” Blaydes says. “Don’t want to. Makes for a viable community.”