Silverlake, Texas

Silverlake is a planned community in unincorporated Brazoria County, Texas, United States, near Pearland and in Greater Houston. The 1,000-acre (400 ha) community has 2,500 single-family houses and 230-acre (93 ha) of supporting commercial usage. It is partially within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Manvel and partially within the extraterritorial jurisdiction of Pearland.

The Southwyck housing development was located along Texas State Highway 288 in Brazoria County, that was built circa 1985. Johnson Development, a development company, said that it and Jefferson Development "recognized the potential of" the "nascent community" which "had floundered along with its developer despite an existing 29-acre lake, golf course and club."

Johnson Development opened the Silverlake community in April 1995. The modus operandi of the developers was that they found tracts of land near a major freeway that would put residents in a position to have quick commutes to their workplaces. In Silverlake's case, the developers marketed Silverlake as allowing a quick commute to Downtown Houston and the Texas Medical Center via Texas State Highway 288. Ralph Bivins of the Houston Chronicle said that housing sales in the Pearland area "were never really big until the 1990s."

Within 27 months of Silverlake's opening, Silverlake became the second highest selling housing development in the Houston area. Tom Wilcox, the general manager of Johnson Development, said in 2002 "We held that position for about three years, and we're still clipping along on the pace that keeps us in the No. 3 and 4 position." Bivins said in 2001 that Silverlake "helped turn the Texas 288 corridor and Pearland into a hotbed of new-home construction activity that is continuing today and spreading." In 2002 Bivins described Silverlake as the "biggest and most prolific of the" newly opened communities.

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