For HHHunt, Wilmington ticked all the boxes.
The real estate development, building and management company, which has corporate offices in Virginia and North Carolina, is bringing its multifamily and single-family brands to the Port City.
HHHunt is set to build a 253-unit apartment complex in Ogden on a nearly 20-acre tract in the 7700 block of Alexander Road. The city annexed the site for Abberly Landing Apartments in December and approved its rezoning Jan. 7.
Buck H. Hunt, president and CEO of family-owned HHHunt, said his firm hopes to start construction on the $74 million apartment project by 2027.
"We've wanted to be there (in Wilmington) for some time, and we made a stronger push here in the last, say, year and a half, to really find a site down there that would work," Hunt said. "I think that location, the local sub market, is very appealing, all the growth there. That seemed to make a lot of sense. And then it was supported by the (city council) for both the annexation into the city of Wilmington and then the rezoning as well."
While most of the apartments will be market rate rent, about 25 of the units will be set aside for workforce housing, according to HHHunt's plans. A representative of HHHunt told the city council at its Jan. 7 meeting that Abberly Landing will offer 13 units to those making 60% of the area median income (AMI) for about $930 a month for one bedroom and 12 units to those making 80% of the AMI for $1,089 for one bedroom.
HHHunt also wants to build 49 single-family homes for sale (likely to start in the $400,000s) in a community called Fawn Valley off Myrtle Grove Road.
HHHunt's apartment plans evolved from its contemplation of a single-family presence in New Hanover County.
"The discussion at first within the company was around expanding our homebuilding group into a new market. But then, when we landed on Wilmington, and the Wilmington MSA, as a market to to build homes in, we thought if we're going to go there for homebuilding, it also made sense ... to find a location for an apartment project because we have yearly goals around apartment starts that we want to meet," Hunt said.
Hunt's company was founded in 1966. In addition to Virginia and North Carolina, the company also builds developments in Georgia, Maryland, South Carolina and Tennessee. HHHunt has a dozen Abberly apartment communities in North Carolina alone.
Hunt said the size of Wilmington also made it seem like a good fit for the homebuilding division of his company.
He said, "It's not a huge market, but it's not a small market either. There's enough room for us to have a presence ... and there's not as many publicly traded builders, as there are, say, in Raleigh or Charlotte."