A school, a pool, some parks, and trails and ...

The plan for Northtree not only includes a number of features, it included - and met - the goal of having many of these features in place for the September 2007 Grand Opening. The idea is that Banning Lewis Ranch is a real community from day one.

A public K-8 charter school

The new public K-8 charter school known as Banning Lewis Ranch Academy is now in its second year of operation. You see, in our earliest planning stages, we decided that knowledge should be one of the cornerstone values of this community. So it only seemed appropriate to make a neighborhood school one of the very first features in our very first village. BLRA opened in the fall of 2006 and is designed to offer students a number of advantages, including performance-based education, high academic standards, gifted and special education programs, and integrated learning with the acclaimed Paragon® Curriculum. Read a brief article about BLRA here.

The Ranch House

Each community center, or Ranch House, in Banning Lewis Ranch is planned to be named after its particular village. So the Ranch House in Northtree is known as Northtree Ranch House. The 7,500 square-foot facility currently includes free WiFi access, exercise space, as well as an outdoor 25-meter Junior Olympic lap pool, and a splash play area for kids. After the information center portion of the Ranch House is removed, there will also be social and meeting spaces. Northtree Ranch House is also where you'll find the Banning Lewis Ranch Information Center. One of the most innovative aspects of Northtree Ranch House is that it's situated right next to Banning Lewis Ranch Academy. So the school and Ranch House share the surrounding park space, playgrounds and sports fields. This placement could also let parents see their kids to class and then take a few more steps over to Northtree Ranch House for, say, an exercise program.

Parks and trails

We've planned some unique open space features for Northtree. A lot of them, in fact. With four neighborhood parks, the community park between the school and Ranch House, and a network of open space corridors called pasillos, every home will be within a block or two of a park, trail or open space. Here are a few highlights:

• Pioneer Park - Talk about a gracious way to greet residents and visitors … Pioneer Park is located at the main entry to Northtree. Once the native grasses mature here, they'll remind you of the long, waving grasses of the western plains. Enjoy a leisurely walk along the trails here. Or just the fact that you can.
• Founders Walk - Homebuyers in Northtree will be commemorated as the "founders" - the first residents of Banning Lewis Ranch - by having their names included in this walkway which meanders along Northtree's west side.
• Northtree Park - The "Central Park" for this village. It is adjacent to the Northtree Ranch House Recreation & Information Center and adds to the outdoor play space for the public K-8 charter school, Banning Lewis Ranch Academy. It's also got free WiFi access, so you can surf the web with a little sun on your shoulders.
• Fit & Fun Park (formerly known as "Sandy Park") - Located in the northern portion of the village, this park features some very cool outdoor exercise structures designed to entertain kids as well as adults...and maybe help them stay in shape, too.
• Climbers Park (Planned) - You can probably guess this park's adventure play challenge. And, yes, it's vertical. Located at the lower end of Northtree, this park will contain a series of rocks specially designed to give climbers of all ages a real thrill that ranges from "easy as pie" to "ai-yi-yi!"
• Cottonwood Preserve - This natural green space features a meandering trail that runs along the eastern edge of Northtree, passing through three small grass parks along the way. The Preserve also serves as an attractive buffer between Northtree and the second village (to come) at Banning Lewis Ranch.

Images and renderings shown in this video may be artists renderings or conceptual. Planned amenities depicted may not be constructed exactly as depicted.