Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 20, 1995 TAG: 9510200045
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Developers announced plans Thursday for an upscale residential community of cluster houses behind security gates.
The project, Southwood, will consist of a total of 216 courtyard homes, town houses and condominium apartments on a 63-acre hilltop site off Franklin Road in South Roanoke.
The project would be built in multiple stages and ultimately would cost more than $40 million, said Edwin Feinour, a Roanoke investment broker who also is vice chairman of the developer, Southwood of Roanoke Community Inc.
The land is owned by the Friendship Foundation, which is affiliated with Friendship Manor, a Roanoke retirement community. Southwood of Roanoke Community Inc. is an affiliated company formed to develop the South Roanoke property.
The site is off Franklin Road near its intersection with Avenham Avenue; access will be through an extension of Duke of Gloucester Street.
An existing house on the tract will become the development's community center.
The first phase of the project is expected to include 26 courtyard homes and eight town houses, priced from $150,000 to $300,000. Prices of the other units were not announced.
Pending approval of city zoning and building permits, groundbreaking is scheduled in the spring with construction expected to start by late summer.
Ultimately, the plan calls for 79 courtyard homes, 41 town houses and 96 units in a condominium-style building. Completion is expected to take five years for the first phase and as long as a decade for the remainder.
The courtyard homes will be detached from each other. They will resemble the 37 homes at The Village at Hunting Hills, a cluster housing project in Roanoke County.
Dennis Cronk of Waldvogel, Poe & Cronk Real Estate Group is Southwood's marketing and sales agent. He said the homes will contain from 1,800 to 2,400 square feet. They will feature 9-foot ceilings, crown moldings and hardwood floors, which are among amenities cited by marketing studies and focus group sessions.
The homes will have two or three bedrooms, he said, and people who buy during construction will be able to choose the number of rooms and the units' interior details.
The proposal will be presented Nov. 1 to the Roanoke Planning Commission. Cronk said the landowner will request rezoning for 55 acres for a residential planned unit development, which provides for a less-intensive use than the present zoning for multifamily and commercial purposes. The proposal, in effect, is a more restrictive zoning.
The remaining 8 acres would be rezoned to allow for a community center, fitness center, medical clinic and group care facility. Feinour said that would be part of a future phase, which may be developed in five to 10 years if the need for such facilities exists.
"This community is the answer to the kind of homes many Roanokers have been wanting," Feinour said. "It's designed for professional and business couples and 'empty-nesters.' They've seen these communities in other cities, and they've expressed desire for the secure, non-maintenance lifestyle."
He emphasized that it will not be a retirement community.
The courtyard home concept, he said, offers the qualities of a single-family home on a private lot, but with the added freedom of no exterior home or lawn maintenance. People will own the homes and the land in the traditional manner, but a homeowners association will provide external maintenance.
"The combination of courtyard homes and town homes is intended to give Southwood an architectural and lifestyle diversity that will appeal to a wide span of ages," Feinour said.
The brick courtyard homes will be one- and two-story, some with basements. Each house will have a two-car garage.
Southwood will have sidewalks on both sides of streets, walking trails and street lamps, Feinour said. The community will have a locked gate entrance, accessible only by homeowners.
David L. Bandy of Echols-Sparger & Associates in Marion is the architect. Charles R. Holcomb of the Holcomb Group is the project manager.
by CNB