In Springfield, City Commissioners approved a development plan to allow construction of 94 high-end apartments in the northeast part of the city. It will be located on a 15.4 acre piece of land that has an address of 3641 Middle Urbana Road.
The project developer, Redwood, indicated that it would be a $13 million to $14 million investment for them.
Gregory Thurman, the vice president of acquisitions for Redwood, said that the company’s developments consist of around 100 units each. In Springfield, the monthly rent for Redwood’s apartments would be in the range of $1,500 to $1,900.
The project was approved in November and the plan at that time was that some of those units would be ready to rent by a year’s time.
Construction has not started in Springfield yet, said Stephen Thompson, the planning, zoning and code administrator for Springfield.
Thompson said that he is not sure when it will begin and noted that the company has not submitted additional plans to the city at this point.
However, one project that’s already under construction is in Vandalia and will include 107 apartment homes and will be open to its first residents in October, according to Mitch Ogle, Redwood’s director of operations.
Plans include the addition of 12 to 15 new Redwood developments in current and new suburban markets, including Miamisburg. Between December 2015 and August 2018, it completed projects in Centerville, Huber Heights, Sugarcreek Twp., Washington Twp. and Fairborn, Ogle said.
“Our first round of neighborhoods have been very successful and this is kind of Phase Two of that success and building on it,” said Thurman, Redwood’s vice president of acquisitions. “The demographics are such that there’s an aging population that wants to take advantage of this temporary or transitional lifestyle.”
Townhomes are one of the fastest-growing segments of the single-family housing construction market, with new townhouses increasing to 11.4% of all single-family starts, according to the National Association of Home Builders, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group.
Townhouse construction expanded to a 2.5-year high during the final quarter of 2020, according to NAHB analysis of the most recent Census data. During the fourth quarter of 2020, single-family attached starts totaled 34,000, which was 36 percent more than the fourth quarter of 2019, when they totaled 25,000. Over the last four quarters, townhouse construction starts totaled 113,000 units, 3% higher than the prior four quarter total (110,000).
Not every community in the region has welcomed Redwood with open arms.
Clayton City Council voted 4-3 last month to deny a request to rezone nearly 34 acres of farmland to make way for a Redwood complex, effectively halting plans for the site. Area residents voiced concerns about increased traffic without the addition of a traffic light, storm water and flooding, and that the development doesn’t align with the city land use plan.
In Springfield, several residents who live in the area that would be home to Redwood’s units shared concerns with commissioners last year that the development would bring more traffic to the area and could create a speeding problem.
The development would create a public roadway that would connect it to Kingsgate Road. That roadway would serve as the single entry point for the apartments.
Thurman said at the time that the development is simply connecting to a public street and that the speed limit in the development would be 10 miles-per-hour. He said that their key demographic would not bring major traffic to the area.
Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck said last year that city staff have had conversations internally about traffic issues in the area. He added that city staff had also met with representatives of Redwood.
Founded in 1991 by Steve Kimmelman, the Independence, Ohio, company owns and manages more than 13,000 units in nearly 100 developments throughout Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Thurman said Redwood Apartment Neighborhoods feel and look “just like a townhome that we would rent on vacation.”
“We are exclusively single-story apartment builders,” Thurman said. “We build and operate everything that we get approved and every unit has a two-car attached garage. Having that ... makes it feel like an existing single-story home.”
Rents range from $1,400 to $2,000, he said.
“It’s an upscale choice that a renter makes who is going into their empty nester (years),” Thurman said. “It gives the empty nesters great flexibility in trying to determine what their lifestyle’s supposed to be after their four-bedroom, single-family home with a growing family. These are two bedroom, two baths, two-car attached garage.”
