 Before the mall's opening, many Fort Bend County residents often traveled to Sharpstown Mall, Westwood Mall or West Oaks Mall for retail services.Construction was delayed for several years due to the economic fallout in Houston from the 1980s oil glut as well as a competing mall proposal in the nearby New Territory development by that community's developer, which sought to build a mall at the northeast intersection of U.S. 59 and the Grand Parkway a few miles further west.Eventually, the First Colony proposal came to fruition and the land for the proposed mall at New Territory has since become the planned community of River Park, which itself was eventually annexed into Sugar Land.