The projects included a 335-acre commercial, conference and leisure center that contained extensive shopping, commercial, office and recreation facilities including a large swim and athletic center, the 200-room Woodlands Inn, an 18-hole golf course, an information center for prospective buyers and a 15-acre lake. The expanded construction also required building almost two miles of major thoroughfares through undeveloped land to connect the Grogan’s Mill Village Center to interchanges at Interstate 45. This extensive front-end development allowed The Woodlands to open with enormous impact that really differentiated it in the market place and made it a big time player in the emerging “new town” development initiative sweeping the nation.