Alcahua County Makes Room for Out-of-Town Builders

HBW subscribers seeking residential construction job leads in Alcahua County have been excited about the strong upswing in construction activity in the county. Alcahua County has long been served by the local construction community, but the recession and the housing market’s recent rebound have opened the county up to outside developers. Immediately prior to the crash of 2008, regional builders from Jacksonville or Orlando had begun expanding into the area. The crash put a damper on their expansion plans at the time, but as Anthony Clark reports in the Gainsville Sun, the economic upturn has spurred those developers to renew and expand their old plans for Alcahua County.

Maronda Homes is one of the most ambitious of the bunch. Maronda, which has operations in five states and is headquartered near Pittsburgh, began building in Alcahua and Newberry in 2006. They now plan to build a combined total of 400 homes in both towns. Maronda’s projects, Baywood Hills in Alcahua and Newberry Place, Newberry Oaks, and the soon-to-be-approved Newberry Corners have already begun construction. The project is expected to last three years.

ICI Homes, a Daytona Beach developer, will finally be oving forward on plans it began ten years ago. One of the builders of the Oakmont community near Jonesville, ICI is proceeding with its decades-old plan to build a 999-home master-planned community in Alcahua County. They will share the 233-unti phase 1 of development with five local builders. One of the original builders of Gainseville’s Weschester development, ICI has teamed with New Atlantic Builders to build the next phase of 132 homes for Weschester.

The area’s lack of large national builders like Pulte, KB Homes, Meritage, and D.R. Horton meant that they hadn’t suffered as strongly during the real estate crash. Because there was no spare inventory to be dumped on the market as soon as the economy improved, new construction in Alcahua County doesn’t have to compete with now-salable foreclosures like other markets do.

The slow, steady population growth, coupled with the dearth of immense tracts of buildable land, have also left major developers less interested in Alcahua County. Even so, Bosshardt Realty Services president Arron Bosshardt, thinks that could change. With big developers increasingly taking on smaller developments and urban infill projects, they might yet come calling in Alcahua County. “Who’s going to be the next big developer?” asked Bosshardt. “There may be an opening for a big national.”

Headquartered in southern Florida, HBW also serves builders in Alabama, Georgia, Texas, and Oklahoma. In addition to our Building Trend Activity for Residential Construction Reports, HBW can create a number of custom reports for any need you might have. We also offer exclusive White Paper Reports to help you market your business. White papers start by giving an overview of the trends in your area and then advice on how to turn your weekly building permit information subscription into successful business leads. To show you how we can help your business succeed, HBW is glad to provide you with complementary building data report or one of our specialized White Paper Reports. Contact us today and start making your business more profitable!

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