McKay Siegel predicts that by late summer, work will start on an immense Brunswick County development, with its first phase of homes rising out of the ground in 2026.

The company Siegel is a partner in, East West Partners, is working with Bald Head Island Limited to create Waterway (formerly Project Indigo) on 400 acres in and adjacent to the city of Southport. The community could hold more than 1,100 homes when it’s done.

Waterway is just one example of the potentially massive neighborhoods, some in planning and design phases while others are even further along, that have made headlines in recent years, many in Brunswick County.

Several gained attention and traction in 2024 and 2025.

In the Wilmington area and across the U.S., communities are coping with a sizable housing shortage. And the experts who explain this over and over don’t mean the country’s affordable housing crisis. (Read more about the region’s housing cost challenges on p. 20). They’re talking about housing in general, but the overall shortage has contributed to strains on affordable housing as well.

The development proposals gaining the most attention in the Wilmington area these days are the major developments with the potential for thousands of homes.

This push makes sense to Siegel, especially in an area where everyone knows growth isn’t likely to slow down.

“We need new housing at a time when high-density commercial, multifamily stuff is kind of difficult to start,” Siegel said, referring to financing challenges other real estate sectors have been feeling acutely.

In addition to market conditions, Waterway is a good fit for East West and BHI Ltd., Siegel said, because the heads of those companies, Roger Perry and Chad Paul, respectively, “have a long history of building great for-sale communities and mixed-use and new urban communities” with success.

And they aren’t really in competition with the other communities coming out of the ground or on the way to Brunswick County, he said.

“We all sort of have a niche,” Siegel said.

He said the companies have no intention of completely clear-cutting the project site for Waterway, but the first work they’ll do will involve some clearing for roads. Waterway is expected to hold 400 single-family lots, 200 cottages/duplexes/townhomes, 500 multifamily units and 100,000 square feet of commercial space. Siegel envisions a potential range of townhomes from the mid- to high-$300,000s up to $2 million homes on large lots.
 

FOLLOWING THE MOVING VANS

In January, a development company’s officials announced in a news release that the firm bought 1,500 acres in Brunswick County.

Contender Development Inc., one of the largest land developers in the southeastern U.S., is permitted to build about 3,600 homes in what will be a master-planned community off Southport-Supply Road, Midway Road SE and Clemmons Road SE on property near the Brunswick County beach town of Oak Island.

The community, called Midway Landing, will be made up of single-family homes.
“It’s a great place to be. … It’s really as simple as following the U-Hauls,” said Paul Luck, division president for Contender Development.

Luck referred to the studies U-Haul publishes each year about where their customers are moving. For 2024, the Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area again earned a spot in the top 25 metro areas for people using U-Haul equipment for one-way transactions.

Plus, Luck said, Wilmington is a coastal area that’s still available.

“Naturally, people want to be on the coast. And if you look up and down the Eastern Seaboard, and you look at coastal communities, there’s not that many that are really available, that are affordable,” he said.

Take Charleston, South Carolina, for example.

“There are no real large land parcels to develop,” Luck said. “If you’re going to be on the coast in the Carolinas, you’re really relegated to the Wilmington area or down along the Grand Strand (in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina).”

He added, “From my observation, Wilmington has that feel of Charleston, but it’s not Charleston – it doesn’t have that price tag that comes along with Charleston, but you still have this beautiful coastline. You still have the Intracoastal Waterway; you still have the marshes. … And so, it’s just very attractive, and it makes for a really good housing ecosystem.”

Luck said Midway Landing will have the touches people moving to the coast, including the wave of retirees that keep finding Brunswick County, want.

“We’re going to have clubhouses and amenity packages and pocket parks,” he said. “And the active adult component is going to have a big, grand clubhouse with fitness and all of the activities that active adults want or expect.”

The first phase of Midway Landing is expected to hold 550 residential lots.

“We’re hoping to have lots on the ground by late 2026 or early 2027,” said Luck, whose company has partnered with homebuilder Ryan Homes on the project.
 

TAKING THEIR TIME

Some large developments that hit the local headlines receive pushback from nearby residents, who often balk at the size and number of housing units planned and the increase in traffic that would come with an influx of thousands of new residents.

One of the most vocal groups of residents is raising concerns about Hilton Bluffs, an enormous proposal in New Hanover County’s Castle Hayne community that could hold 4,000 homes. (Read more about Hilton Bluffs here.)

But for any development plan, the homes don’t all come out of the ground at once, and in other cases, the plans are scrapped altogether.

Many of the developments large and small currently taking noticeable steps forward began their journeys through local planning paths long before this year.

“It takes anywhere from two to three years from the time a planning board approves a plan – whether it be multifamily, residential or commercial but particularly residential – before you ever see any lots come to fruition on the ground,” said Cameron Moore, executive officer of the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association. From the time of approval, he said, “whether it be one lot or 1,800 lots, it’s not going to be there tomorrow.”

For the larger projects, the developer has to work though market conditions, Moore said. “It could be a 10-, 15-, 20-year project.”

Siegel said a project the size of Waterway will have at least three, maybe four phases “depending on how it goes. And the different components will start at different times.”

Even with overwhelming demand, the buyers have to be there, have to be able to stomach higher interest rates, for example.

Siegel said, “ You go just as fast as the market will allow you to on these things.”