Last week, Georgetown, the county seat of fast-growing Williamson County, approved stricter development regulations. So far, most of the growth has been in and around Round Rock, along the county's southern tier where it bumps into Austin. Growth has been creeping further north, but it's had a hard time finding a roost in Georgetown, known for Southwestern University and its historic Downtown square.

The development regulations require less impervious cover, alleviation of traffic and more preservation of trees and other vegetation. With the council's latest action, Quorum may let the property sit, according to Jerry Heare, a broker with NAI/Commercial Industrial Properties Inc. in Austin.

Quorum representatives didn't respond to calls about their plans. Heare, who was involved in Quorum buying the property, says probably nothing will happen now. "They may just sit on that property and hold it until the city council of Georgetown changes its mind," he tells GlobeSt.com.

The Dallas group had scaled back its plans over the past two years from a big, mixed-use development to one with two big-box retailers as it negotiated with the city council. Previous attempts to develop the property for office buildings failed because of the real estate bust of the 1980s or problems with the developer.

In the mid-1990s, Power Computing Inc., which made clones of Apple's Macintosh computers, planned to put its corporate headquarters on the site. That didn't happen because Apple stopped licensing the right to make Mac copies and eventually bought Power Computing.

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