With the purchase last week of nearly 64 acres along the Cape Fear River for $1.7 million, a family of developers adds plans for another New Hanover County residential subdivision to its portfolio.

Wilmington residents Jack Carlisle and his daughter, Lisa Beaman, have been acquiring bank-owned properties where different developers and owners had planned to build new homes before the recession shut the projects down. 

A limited liability company managed by Beaman and Carlisle bought 63.83 acres at 8400 River Road on May 6 from Redus NC Land LLC. Previous site plans for the property, located across from Masonboro Country Club, show 49 home lots and a 48-slip docking facility in a neighborhood that would have been called Watermark Landing.

That name could change, Beaman said Monday, as there is already a business on River Road called Events at Watermark. But the next step will be to look at the property with some engineers to determine how much of the subdivision’s previous site plans Beaman and Carlisle want to keep, Beaman said.  She said at that point, if the plans remain intact, “then we will probably have all the infrastructure done and lots would be ready in nine months to a year.”

The fact that the supply of lots in New Hanover has diminished while the demand has grown has sparked more interest in foreclosed properties and projects like 8400 River Road, said Sam Burgess, senior planner for the county.

"It is enabling established construction firms to keep going in retaining their employees as far as building homes are concerned," Burgess said.

The local builders Carlisle and Beaman have been working with closely in recent years are Hardison Building Co. and Blanton Building Inc. Carlisle and his son, Greg, began developing land in New Hanover County in 2012 by buying another foreclosed property, a subdivision that will at build-out consist of 130 homes off Carolina Beach Road called Tarin Woods, for $1 million. But Greg died in a plane crash in January 2013, and that’s when Beaman, one of Greg’s sisters, moved from Greenville to Wilmington to join her father in the land development business.

Currently, about three-fourths of the lots in Tarin Woods have been sold, Beaman said Monday. Since 2013, the family’s limited liability companies have spent at least $6 million buying foreclosed land to start, restart or add to other subdivisions, including Sunset Reach along the Northeast Cape Fear River and Echo West inside Echo Farms. Their purchases have also included additional land off Carolina Beach Road and in Castle Hayne, where they're considering a potential single-family residential project with some commercial space nearby.

Beaman said her father has always been self-employed, building some apartments "right out of school," she said. Also last week, Beaman and Carlisle sold an apartment complex in Charlotte to Hunters Pointe Apartments LLC for more than $12.8 million, intending to roll some of those funds into local developments like the River Road homes.

The family also owns an ethanol plant in Indiana that had its most profitable years ever in 2013 and 2014, Beaman said.

“For us, it’s basically been the ethanol plant and the success of Tarin Woods which has allowed us to buy additional land in New Hanover County to develop,” Beaman said.