Last December, someone put up a sign in a yard across the highway from the Armstrong property on Trotwood Avenue. It celebrated a subdivision that would never be built. A photo of that sign ran with Main Street Maury's report on the vote. On December 16, 2025, the Mount Pleasant City Commission voted 5-0 to "abandon and discontinue" annexation of the 106 acres. That ended John Maher Builders' plan for 247 houses there.
In the same stretch of time, Mount Pleasant kept adding manufacturers. If you're comparing it with Columbia or Spring Hill, that split shapes the market more than any median price will. Jobs are being announced at a steady pace, and the town has yet to approve anything close to a subdivision to house the people who fill them.
The Employers Are Already Announced
Most of the new employers are going into Cherry Glen Industrial Park and along North Main Street. Here is what has been announced, with the status each source supports.
| Employer | Location | What was announced | Status in the sources |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recticel Group | Cherry Glen Industrial Park | $49.6 million insulated-panels plant, 78 jobs | Announced February 2026 |
| Xxentria Technology Materials | Cherry Glen Industrial Park | About $45 million plant, 85+ planned jobs | Broke ground June 2025 |
| Hygrade Components | 1319 North Main Street | $1.6 million expansion, about 100,000 sq ft, 30+ jobs | Announced June 2026 |
| ACME United / Spill Magic | 103 Sam Watkins Boulevard | Purchased a 77,000 sq ft building; move from Smyrna planned for January 2026 | Purchase confirmed |
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development announced Recticel on February 24, 2026, as the company's first U.S. insulated-panels facility. Main Street Maury covered Xxentria's groundbreaking in June 2025. The state's Hygrade announcement says the plant will have 100 employees once the expansion is complete. City minutes from July 2025 recorded ACME United's plan to buy 103 Sam Watkins Boulevard and move its Spill Magic operation there. The company's 2025 annual report confirms it bought a 77,000-square-foot Mount Pleasant manufacturing and distribution center.
The three projects with job counts add up to more than 190 positions. Spill Magic would add more, though no number has been published for it. Announced jobs aren't the same as people on a payroll, and the opening dates for these plants are still to come. The direction is clear, though. In the city's own 2026 strategic plan, the board of commissioners listed "Growing Industrial Base" as its first strength.
The 247 Homes That Needed Someone Else's Sewer
The Armstrong property sits along Trotwood Avenue between Zion Road and Old Zion Road, and WSMV reported on resident pushback in August 2025. According to the city's annexation packet, the proposal needed annexation and R-3 high-density residential zoning. It also had a problem that explains a lot about Mount Pleasant: no sewer lines reached the site.
Under the plan of services, a new private provider called Edge Wastewater would have handled sewage through a proposed treatment facility designed for 74,100 gallons per day. Water would have come from Columbia Power & Water Systems. CPWS's June 2025 availability letter estimated $1,358,500 in impact fees for the project, about $5,500 per home, before any pipe went in the ground. The letter was set to expire in October 2025 unless fees were paid to lock in the service.
According to Main Street Maury, the city Planning Commission voted twice against the annexation and plan of services. Months of organized opposition followed, with more than 70 people speaking at the final public-comment session. Commissioner Mike Davis had objected from early on to bringing in a development the city could not serve with all city services. After the vote, he told Main Street Maury, "I'm just glad it's coming to an end."
So the largest residential proposal in recent memory didn't stall because of financing or demand. It ended over whether the city should annex land it could not sewer itself.
What Reached the Planning Table in 2026
With Armstrong gone, here is the residential business on the Mount Pleasant Planning Commission's 2026 agendas:
- February 10: a request to split 2 acres at 208 Canaan Road into two parcels of just under an acre each. The commission deferred it to get more information about the sewer.
- May 12: a request to divide 1.72 acres at 409 Williams Spring Road into three R-1 parcels.
- July 14: a split of 7.11 acres at 6681 Polk Lane into two parcels, and a preliminary plat for four townhomes on 0.23 acres at 222 Appletree Street.
The biggest residential item of the year so far is four townhomes. At the same February meeting where the Canaan Road split waited on sewer answers, the commission approved dividing 74.10 acres of light-industrial land off New Lawrenceburg Highway. A site plan for a solar farm on one of the new parcels was deferred at the applicant's request. In April, the Maury County Regional Planning Commission recommended rezoning 184.51 acres on Mount Joy Road for a proposed solar facility meant to supply city power.
Large parcels around Mount Pleasant are changing hands and zoning. In 2026, those changes have mostly gone to industry and energy.
The City's Own Scorecard
The strategic plan states the problem in the city's own words. In the SWOT analysis from the 2026 work session, commissioners listed these weaknesses:
Affordability of Homes · Availability of Residential Lots · High Sewer Rates
The summary that follows names "housing affordability, limited residential and commercial development opportunities, high sewer rates" among the city's internal challenges. Short lot supply and high sewer costs come from the same infrastructure, and the city has been working on it.
Water and Wastewater, Where Things Stood
Mount Pleasant has been rebuilding its utilities rather than expanding them. A project update in the city's meeting packet says the wastewater treatment plant rehabilitation reached substantial completion on July 21, 2025. In October 2025, the Columbia Daily Herald reported that CPWS extended its water partnership with Mount Pleasant for 24 months. The arrangement covers 100,000 gallons a day, and more as capacity allows.
By December 2025, Main Street Maury reported that TDEC had closed a two-decade-old consent order on the wastewater plant. The improvements were paid for with $10 million in nonmatching grants and a 40-year loan at 1% interest. The same report said the city had fixed 129 leaks, saving 400 gallons per minute. It had also added a third filtration skid at the Sandy Hook water-treatment plant and was drilling a well next door expected to produce 100 gallons per minute. "We are doing everything possible that we can do without raising rates… to become self-sufficient in water," Mayor Bill White said, as quoted in that report.
Those figures are from last December. The city's January 2026 plan still lists new water sources, sewer inflow-and-infiltration work, and water-treatment improvements as utility priorities. Every item on that list is a repair or an added source for the existing system, and none of them adds sewer service to land that lacks it.
What the County Number Leaves Out
Greater Nashville REALTORS' quarterly report shows Maury County with 537 residential closings in Q3 2026 (July through September), at a residential median of $440,000. Across the nine-county area, the figure was $522,166 that quarter. Williamson County was at $1,075,000 and Rutherford at $450,000.
That $440,000 combines Spring Hill subdivisions, Columbia neighborhoods, and Mount Pleasant's older in-town streets and rural edges in one figure. No current, reliable sales data covers Mount Pleasant alone, and a county median can't show you what one block is worth. What the Mount Pleasant records do show is the supply side. Little new housing is coming, the lots that do appear arrive a few at a time, and sewer questions can hold up even a two-parcel split.
Here's what that means if you're shopping. The homes already standing in Mount Pleasant, especially those already connected to city water and sewer, are most of the supply you'll have to choose from for a while. Unlike in Spring Hill, a new subdivision is unlikely to open next year with a fresh batch of options.
Questions Worth Asking Before an Offer Here
Before you make an offer on a Mount Pleasant property, these questions are worth asking:
- Is the home on city sewer, a private system, or septic? The Canaan Road deferral shows that sewer answers can decide what happens to a lot.
- If the listing mentions room to split or build, has that been through the Planning Commission? Agendas and minutes are posted on the city's meeting portal.
- Who supplies the water? A home on Mount Pleasant Water is in a different position than one served by CPWS.
- What will monthly utility bills look like? The city itself lists high sewer rates as a weakness, so that cost belongs in your budget alongside the mortgage.
This post is general information about local planning and utilities, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm the details for any specific property with the utility, the city, or the right professional.
If you're weighing Mount Pleasant against Columbia or Spring Hill, I'm happy to go through sewer status, lot history and recent nearby sales for the specific homes you're considering, so you know what you're getting before you make an offer. Reach out to Heidi Osterheld and let's connect.
