One of Brunswick Forest’s developers said during a recent presentation that the 4,500-acre community in Leland is working to keep up with the area’s growing demand for homes.

One of the reasons for that demand, said Alan Kerry, president of Lord Baltimore Properties, is that thousands of baby boomers are turning age 65 every day. While Brunswick Forest includes younger residents, baby boomer homebuyers represent the largest group, he said.

“The demographics are unmistakable,” Kerry told a gathering of Cape Fear Commercial Real Estate Women. He provided the group with an overview and update on activity at Brunswick Forest during the session, held March 18 in The Forest Fine Food & Spirits restaurant at the Cape Fear National golf course clubhouse.

While Cape Fear National is part of Brunswick Forest, Kerry said, he does not consider the development a golf course community.

“It’s a lifestyle community,” he said, quipping that residents pay for the lifestyle while their house is free.

In terms of growth, Brunswick Forest isn’t alone. Thousands of residents were expected to flock to Brunswick County before the Great Recession diminished that expectation, but in recent years, a flurry of homebuilding has occurred, especially in northern Brunswick, county officials say.

As a result, more homebuilders have been bringing their products to the area. At Brunswick Forest, developers recently added four new homebuilders – 70 West Builders, Liberty Homes, Tribute Homes and Southern Home Builders Inc. – to a list that now totals 13.

“The last two years we’ve had 230 to 250 homes sold,” Kerry said. “We’ve welcomed over 300 families.”

In addition to new homes, several new businesses are on the way soon to Brunswick Forest.

Some of the latest in the lineup for the Villages at Brunswick Forest, a 160-acre town center off U.S. 17 that serves as the commercial portion of the Brunswick Forest mixed-use development, include a craft beer and wine establishment, an Irish pub, an optometrist, a homebuilder’s design center, ATMC, Berry Financial Group and Farm Bureau Insurance.

The last three bought property last year from Brunswick Forest to establish a presence in the center, Kerry said.

“It provides the services that our residents need, and it’s our front door, which is very important,” Kerry said, explaining the importance of the Villages. “We have bucked all the national trends. When I say that, we have opened up three different strip areas, and we’re going to a fourth now … and we have opened each one of them 100 percent pre-leased … right now that’s not happening around the United States of America.”

While ATMC will establish a retail storefront and Berry Financial Group and Farm Bureau Insurance are building their own space, Brunswick Forest developers were about five weeks away from breaking ground on a 10,000-square-foot commercial building with retail tenants on the bottom floor and offices on the top, Kerry said.

The space will house a new design center for one of the development’s homebuilders, the optometrist, a new location for Slainte Irish Pub, and Flights, the craft beer and wine business.

“What we’re doing is we’re going at it very methodically, very carefully to make sure that two things happen: No. 1, we service the residents. What do they need? … the other thing we do is, we don’t want to hurt our current tenants,” Kerry said, explaining the development’s approach to new commercial tenants. “They’re here to help us, so I don’t want to hurt them.”