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Blue Springs, MO —
Oh where oh where did all the developers go?
Evidently not far.
With building permits picking up and full agendas approaching the Blue Springs Planning Commission, life has begun to stir in the city. Old projects long delayed or abandoned are returning to life as local developers are picking up where they left off during the Great Recession – or, as in some cases, picking up where others left off.
“It’s by no means what it was five or 10 years ago, but there is a lot of activity going on,” Scott Allen, director of the Community Development Department, said Tuesday. “Developers are coming back.”
The signs may have been small during the early months of 2012, but they have been encouraging and indicative of things to come, Allen said.
On Monday night, David Ward got his final plans for Eagles Ridge passed. The 153-acre project, which has been years in the planning stages, will have 40 duplexes, an increase of seven from original plans.
And some activity has been seen at the Chapman Farms residential project on South Missouri 7.
But the days of big time developers swooping in and leveling out hundreds of acres are finished.
“The 800-acre development just isn’t going to happen anymore in the city,” Allen said. “Those days are over.”
Two years ago, it seemed the days when the city recorded a healthy amount of building permits were over, too. In 2009, at the height of the recession, only 483 building permits were recorded. Since then, the figures have been climbing. In 2010, the figure was 505, and 539 were filed last year. If activity keeps steady in 2012, the city will surpass 2011, Allen said.
Allen told commission members on Monday that they can expect a full agenda on May 30 and at subsequent meetings. For a government body that saw a number of meetings canceled last year due to lack of items, the announcement was a breath of fresh air.
“I think there’s a big sense of relief,” Allen said, adding that the commission will hear proposals besides housing developments in the coming weeks, including Little Caesar’s Pizza, which plans to open in the old dry cleaning business at Missouri 7 and Clark Avenue.
Randy Sallee, president of Sallee Custom Homes, said his decision to swoop down and purchase two projects – Eagles Ridge and Parkway Estates – was based on forward thinking and the understanding that, in spite of how bad things can get, they will almost always turn around again.
Oh where oh where did all the developers go?
Evidently not far.
With building permits picking up and full agendas approaching the Blue Springs Planning Commission, life has begun to stir in the city. Old projects long delayed or abandoned are returning to life as local developers are picking up where they left off during the Great Recession – or, as in some cases, picking up where others left off.
“It’s by no means what it was five or 10 years ago, but there is a lot of activity going on,” Scott Allen, director of the Community Development Department, said Tuesday. “Developers are coming back.”
The signs may have been small during the early months of 2012, but they have been encouraging and indicative of things to come, Allen said.
On Monday night, David Ward got his final plans for Eagles Ridge passed. The 153-acre project, which has been years in the planning stages, will have 40 duplexes, an increase of seven from original plans.
And some activity has been seen at the Chapman Farms residential project on South Missouri 7.
But the days of big time developers swooping in and leveling out hundreds of acres are finished.
“The 800-acre development just isn’t going to happen anymore in the city,” Allen said. “Those days are over.”
Two years ago, it seemed the days when the city recorded a healthy amount of building permits were over, too. In 2009, at the height of the recession, only 483 building permits were recorded. Since then, the figures have been climbing. In 2010, the figure was 505, and 539 were filed last year. If activity keeps steady in 2012, the city will surpass 2011, Allen said.
Allen told commission members on Monday that they can expect a full agenda on May 30 and at subsequent meetings. For a government body that saw a number of meetings canceled last year due to lack of items, the announcement was a breath of fresh air.
“I think there’s a big sense of relief,” Allen said, adding that the commission will hear proposals besides housing developments in the coming weeks, including Little Caesar’s Pizza, which plans to open in the old dry cleaning business at Missouri 7 and Clark Avenue.
Randy Sallee, president of Sallee Custom Homes, said his decision to swoop down and purchase two projects – Eagles Ridge and Parkway Estates – was based on forward thinking and the understanding that, in spite of how bad things can get, they will almost always turn around again.
Sallee’s company purchased Eagles Ridge from North American Savings Bank. The project had been abandoned and Sallee felt positive that he could do something with it. When he purchased it, only four homes had been built out of 40 lots.
“Now we have about six to eight lots left to build on,” he said. “I was surprised at how much interest there was in it.”
Over at Parkway Estates, at the corner of Moreland School Road and Adams Dairy Parkway, Sallee saw another lucrative investment. He purchased 80 lots from Hillcrest Bank, now Bank of the Midwest. At the time of his purchase, only seven homes had been built.
The project is mostly mid-range homes with a mixture of two-story and patio homes.
Allen said developers like Sallee are looking more and more for projects that have been abandoned and/or left stagnant and purchasing them. Following that, they are developing the original project in bits rather than the whole project.
For instance, at Eagles Ridge, the original plan called for a variety of commercial property to be built along Missouri 7. It was an ambitious plan when it was first proposed about five years ago.
“There’s been no movement, no mention, of the commercial end of the plan,” Allen said.
Instead, Sallee and others pared it down to fit the economic times and desires of current homebuyers and, in some cases, renters.
In another example, a developer purchased property in the Chapman Farms residential complex and divided the lots, a common practice among developers who wish to get as much out of a property as they can. Changes like these haven’t been criticized by city boards and commissions, either; instead, they have been praised.
Since the economy sputtered in 2008, prominent developers, including Tom Williams of Greenfields, have left the area. Allen, who worked closely with Williams during the initial stages of the Chapman Farms project, said he doesn’t know if Williams has any presence in the city.
Another developer, Warren Parker, recently pleaded guilty to federal charges involving defrauding the government of as much as $6.7 million in federal contracts. Parker was owner of Silver Star Construction and had built some projects in the city, including the start of Eagles Ridge.
“The bigger, large-scale developers aren’t here anymore, for one reason or another,” Allen said.
Sallee is a relative newcomer. He has only constructed one project in the city, the Adams Pointe Village subdivision off R.D. Mize Road.
“It’s a totally different environment now than it was a year ago,” Sallee said, adding that local banks, once hesitant to loan money, have become more liberal – if, that is, the project is worthwhile and the developer has good standing.
“They’ll loan to the right person,” he said.
