Telfair, Sugar Land

Telfair is a 2,018-acre (817 ha) master planned community located in Sugar Land, Texas. It consists of former property of the Central Prison Unit.

In 2002 the State of Texas sold a parcel of land from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Central Prison Unit to Newland Communities, a developer from San Diego, California. The property was one of the last large tracts within the city limits of Sugar Land that was open for development. In February 2005 Newland broke ground on Telfair, a master planned community located on former prison land. The community was named after a square in downtown Savannah, Georgia. The developer planned to build 4,000 to 4,500 houses, and it planned to open the first group of houses in the northern hemisphere Spring of 2006. The development opened in 2006.

In 2009 Telfair had a 10% sales increase. At that time new house sales in most areas of Houston had decreased by double digits. As of March 2010, of the 2,800 planned houses, over 1,600 of them had been constructed. In 2010 the Houston Business Journal awarded the development three landmark awards: one for the best residential community, and two for transforming a housing facility of the Central Unit into a museum facility.

The Imperial State Farm Cemetery, where inmates from the old prison were buried from 1912 to the 1930s, still remains in the center of a grass field in the northwest section of Telfair. Telfair's central road, University Boulevard, was previously named Flanagan Road after Imperial Prison Farm (the old name of the Central Prison Unit) warden R. J. "Buck" Flanagan (1880–1949), who held the position for 30 years until his death.

The community is located on U.S. Route 59 (Southwest Freeway). The main entrance is on University Boulevard, south of Texas State Highway 6.

In 2012, Texas Instruments announced that it was relocating its Fort Bend County operations from Stafford to the Telfair area. The construction was completed and the building opened in early 2014.

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