In addition to single-family homes, the developer of a 1,300-acre community in Scotts Hill is planning a 240-unit multi-family neighborhood.
Trask Land Co., a Wilmington-based real estate and land development company, is in the process of engaging a land planning firm and an architect and initiating the permitting process for the multi-family component of the mixed-use project, according to a news release Thursday.
Raiford Trask III, president of Trask Land Co., said 125 single-family homes will be built at the same time and are expected to be finished before the apartments. Thousands of apartments are under construction or in the planning stages in Wilmington, but the same is not true of Pender County.
“Our location is strong, and that is why we are going to construct the project now,” Trask said.
He said it’s too early to say what the exact rent prices will be for the Blake Farm apartments, but they are planned to reflect the market rate.
The company anticipates that home prices will start in the high $200,000s while the upper-end will be in the low $400,000s initially, Trask said.
“We are extremely excited about the opportunities Blake Farm will provide for young families,” Trask said, families that are expected to move to Blake Farm for the lifestyle and its location in the Topsail school district.
The design for the apartments and homes will encompass Blake Farm’s Cape Fear Heritage style, which aims to reflect the “country coastal lifestyle native to Scotts Hill,” the news release said.
Trask said permitting is almost finished for the 125 home lots. The Blake Farm master plan includes 2,998 approved residential units, with the Phase 1 preliminary plan approved for 277 single-family lots, the release said. Construction is set to begin later this summer.
“The single-family market is very strong in all three counties,” Trask said.
The numbers agree. Overall, more homes sold in the Wilmington area this year during the month of May than the same period in 2014, according to statistics released this week.
Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors numbers, gathered from its Multiple Listing Service that covers New Hanover, Pender and northern Brunswick County, showed that 654 units sold this May, compared to 641 in May of last year.
The last time the amount of homes sold reached 650 was in May 2007, WRAR statistics show.
The latest numbers reflect an ongoing increase in home sales in the Cape Fear region. Average sale prices, however, dipped from $249,865 to $249,193, a not unexpected change as the local supply of single family homes grows, with more in the works. Median prices dropped from $203,000 in May 2014 to $198,950 this year.
More new subdivisions in New Hanover County are expected to add to the Wilmington area’s inventory. Site plans for a community called Waterstone call for 149 single family home lots on a little more than 86 acres, according to documents submitted to the county. The plans were prepared by Thomas Hutton Engineering for Har-Ste Investments LLC.
According to a New Hanover County building permit and inspections report, 84 new residential construction permits for houses were issued in May, 46 in April and 115 in March, the highest number recorded this year.
