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A joint venture has begun work on a $70 million residential project on RR 620 in the Four Points area.
Versante Canyon Homes will include 142 townhomes and villas on 35 acres overlooking the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. The townhomes, priced from the low $300,000s, will be in two- and four-unit buildings while the villas, topping out in the mid-$500,000s, will be detached single-family homes.
Dallas-based Crow Holdings Realty Partners IV LP and The Verandah Cos. of Houston are partnering on the project that will go vertical this summer and have homes ready for move-in by spring 2008. Verandah will handle construction on the townhomes and Austin-based Harrington Custom Homes has been tapped to carry out the single-family construction.
The gated community will be completely maintained by staff, including the landscaping of the single-family homes. It will feature a shared clubhouse with fitness center, pub area, outdoor kitchen and pool. About 40 percent of the land will remain as is to preserve the natural aesthetic.
Bob Stratton, president of Verandah Development, says when his company worked on a subdivision in the adjacent Grandview Hills development, it found a lot of customers who were interested in the high-end finishes of those homes -- but not the $1 million price tags. Versante Canyon Homes will be an answer to that demand: custom-finished homes built in the Santa Barbara-style but with less overall square footage than neighboring developments.
Stratton says residential development makes sense in an area that is set for a commercial building boom in coming years. New office and retail construction is on tap for the immediate Four Points area, and across the Northwest submarket nearly 2 million square feet of new office space is in the pipeline.
That, coupled with the property's proximity to Lake Travis and the lower price point, should make it an easy sell for homebuyers, he says.
Mike Harrington, president of Harrington Custom Homes, says the development will offer a product type that Austin hasn't seen before. He echoes Stratton's belief that new office development will feed growth.
In fact, recognizing the demand, his homebuilding company is gearing up to develop its own 16,000-square-foot boutique office building at 6414 Riverplace Blvd. near the intersection of FM 2222.
"Just look at the new schools that are being built in this area," Harrington says. "That really shows the growth that's coming."
Mark Sprague, Austin partner of housing research group Residential Strategies Inc., says there is a market in the Four Points area for the type of product Versante Canyon Homes will offer. He says other builders are exploring the idea of high-finish homes at a similar price point, but Versante is likely to be the first out of the ground and will therefore capture a great deal of that demand. In addition, he says, there really aren't any for-sale multifamily options currently in that immediate area -- only single-family homes and apartments.
According to a year-end report from Residential Strategies, about 1,285 new homes were started last year in Austin's Northwest submarket. The median price of new homes in that area rose 23.4 percent in 2006 over 2005 to $387,211.
amistretta@bizjournals.com | (512) 494-2519 |
