Active-adult living booming in region

Active-adult living booming in region

TRENDS AREA IS HOT SPOT FOR THOSE 55 AND UP

Original article appears in Fredericksburg.com

But the couple, who have lived in Spotsylvania’s Virginia Heritage community ever since, were impressed with the amenities and the clubhouse.

She said there are always activities, such as her Thursday dominoes-and-lunch group.

“I’m never bored,” she said.

The Clemonses are both retired from the federal government and moved here from Maryland. She is from Orange County, but wanted to be in a more populated part of the Fredericksburg region.

They sold their first home in Virginia Heritage a few years ago and purchased a house with a smaller footprint in the same development.

“It became too much and they were building smaller in a new section,” Pat Clemons said.

They aren’t the only ones in the region looking for a more manageable way of life.

The Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, the country’s 65-and-older population will double. As baby boomers age, that group will number 83.7 million.

According to one local developer, those baby boomers are looking to downsize.

The demand for communities catering to the 55-and-older demographic exploded in the region about a decade ago, spawning places such as Legacy Woods and Virginia Heritage at Lee’s Parke in Spotsylvania, The Evergreens at Smith Run in Fredericksburg, and Falls Run in Stafford County.

Demand for those types of homes dropped along with the rest of the housing market after the Great Recession, but is now showing signs of revival.

Cornerstone Homes, the developer of Regency Park Villas in Spotsylvania, started building in the Fredericksburg area again as demand for its core business—active-adult communities—picked up.

The company sat on 32 acres near the intersection of State Route 3 and Gordon Road for eight years, waiting for the market to improve. Cornerstone recently started work on The Villas at Barley Woods. The first homes are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Cornerstone owner Roger Glover said demand never died off for senior-living communities, but a poor real estate market kept people from selling their homes.

“Now those homes are selling and they need somewhere to move,” he said. “We’re seeing pent-up demand that has surged in the last couple of years.”

Cornerstone already rezoned the property when the recession hit. Glover said the recession changed his approach to building, and he chose to focus solely on active-adult communities ever since.

Cornerstone is in the final stages of floor plan designs for the communities and will start constituting the model homes and clubhouse this June.

The Villas at Barley Woods will be a small, 55-plus community of about 120 homes.

It will also have features that Glover said seniors are increasingly seeking: walking trails, an executive suite for the semi-retired, a pool, a grandchild play area and a dog run.

It’s not the only outdoor-friendly community Cornerstone is working on.

Hanover County recently approved Cornerstone Homes’ proposal for Chickahominy Falls, a 400-home development anchored by a community farm.

Glover said Fredericksburg ticks all the boxes for a successful senior-focused development. It is on the East Coast, near cities like Richmond and Washington D.C., but far enough removed to offer a slower pace of life. With the region’s growing population, he said many older people are moving here to be close to children who live in the area.

Cathie and David Taylor moved into another Cornerstone development, the Villas at Magnolia Lakes in Richmond, last June.

“From a real estate perspective, I decided to focus when I saw the trend coming,” said Dort, who fits the demographic. “I’m one of them.”

At age 57, he said he’s among the younger residents of the development but needed to downsize from their longtime three-story home on more than an acre.David Taylor is the co-owner of Libbie Market, a full-service grocery story in the Westhampton area of Richmond, and due to the demands of his job needed less home maintenance.

He said with his own health concerns, aged parents and work, it made sense to downsize.

Taylor recommended other people making a similar move take their time and make sure the lifestyle fits their expectations.

Linda Dort, a senior real estate specialist with Century 21 New Millennium, works exclusively with homes in senior communities and communities that are appealing to retired people.

She releases an annual “Guide to Main Level Living” that lists 23 local communities that offer maintenance-free communities with social opportunities. Some of these communities are partially age restricted, and some now allow younger buyers.

Dort also lives in Virginia Heritage. She moved there in 2007.

Active-adult communities are creating new opportunities for local business people.

Thomas Pentland, owner of personal driving service At Your Service, said the aging population created a need for his business.

He focuses on elderly clients who don’t drive, but need to run errands. He moved here from Maine to be closer to family and was struck by the number of senior living developments.

“I went to a lot of those communities and talked about their residents’ transportation needs,” he said. “It’s just because of age. Baby boomers like me are the larger portion of the population, and they are going into retirement.”

Lindley Estes: 540.735-1976

lestes@freelancestar.com

Cornerstone Homes

The Chestefield Chamber of Commerce did an awesome live video about a project being done with Cornerstone Homes. Guess who their preferred settlement services provider is? Yep, you guessed right, only if you guessed Safe Harbor Title of course!

Check out the video below to learn more about this awesome project!

R*Home - Finders Keepers

Original article appears in R*Home - Richmond Magazine

Jodie Strum collects Midcentury treasures to fill her Roslyn Hills home | Photos by Ansel Olson

When Strum moved in, the home was almost entirely brown. She transformed it by painting the walls white with contrasting black beams and installing statement wallpaper. Strum has furnished the home with a mix of Midcentury and contemporary furniture.


When Jodie Strum bought a Midcentury home in Henrico’s Roslyn Hills neighborhood, she scoured the Internet — and area antique stores — for hard-to-find furnishings and home décor items that would help transform the space.

The only thing Strum had no problem finding was the house itself. Her brother was the listing agent, and when he showed her the 2,300-square foot California ranch, built in 1959, she thought she’d walked onto the set of “The Brady Bunch.” Everything — from the walls to the radiators to the living room fireplace — was painted one of three shades of brown. “I didn’t know what I’d do with [the house],” says Strum, a commercial real estate broker, “but I did know I liked the flow.” She purchased it in May 2015.

Strum, who grew up as a member of a large Italian family in Bon Air, had good reason to be impressed by the open floor plan. “When I was young, we ate at my grandmother’s house every Sunday night, all of us wedged in the tiniest kitchen you ever saw,” she recalls. Strum and her siblings have continued the tradition. “We’re big eaters and big entertainers,” she says.

“I wanted to stay true to the Midcentury feel without getting kitschy.” —Jodie Strum

Strum hired Kauffman Construction to bring the house into the 21st century and took to the Internet to learn everything she could about Midcentury home design. Her plan was to keep the best parts of the house intact, while also making the home extremely livable. “I wanted to stay true to … the Midcentury feel without getting kitschy,” Strum says.

Jodie Strum stands in her dining area, which features wallpaper by Matthew Williamson for Osborne & Little. The 1970s table and brass chairs are by Mastercraft, and the light fixture is by Jonathan Adler.

The sunporch features pieces from Strum’s large collection of coveted Russell Woodard furniture, a lucky Craigslist find.

In the kitchen, she opted to save the cabinets but reconfigured them, turning an island into a peninsula and moving the location of the refrigerator. The cabinets got a coat of high-gloss white paint and new hardware, but it was the white glass countertops Strum saw on Houzz and tracked down through a New Jersey-based distributor that really transformed the space.

If she was going to make all those large family gatherings happen, Strum knew she’d need more than just a pretty kitchen. To increase her seating, she added a breakfast bar, which she topped with a heavily epoxied wood countertop, fabricated by Wellborn + Wright. And in the dining room, Strum committed herself to finding a Midcentury table that could extend when the whole family came for dinner. She located a burl wood table with brass inlay, manufactured by Mastercraft in the 1960s, through an antique dealer in Chicago and had it shipped to Richmond.

For finding Midcentury pieces online, Strum relies on Etsy, Chairish, 1stdibs and Craigslist. When a pair of 1960s-era Russell Woodard gliders went up for sale on Craigslist, Strum dropped everything and drove her brother’s truck to Washington, D.C., to pick them up. Her determination earned her the admiration of the couple selling them, and she came home with not two but 17 pieces of the highly coveted patio furniture.

The sunken family room opens to the sunroom and features a cushy velvet couch from Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams paired with an Adrian Pearsall chair and a custom table from Epoch Furnishings.

Selecting new lighting that appropriately evoked the era of the house proved to be one of Strum’s toughest challenges. She went with Jonathan Adler chandeliers in the dining room and the den. In the living room, as well as a guest room, she chose Aerin Lauder pendants, which she ordered from Visual Comfort. And in the kitchen, she commissioned two custom light fixtures — made with milk glass and hemp — from Ro Sham Beaux in Charleston, South Carolina.

The key for Strum has been mixing the old with the new. “I find myself gravitating towards the stuff from the ’50s and ’60s because of the quality,” she says, “but I’ve had to force myself to buy some new things, too.” In her den, a reupholstered Eames chair scored at Born Again Furnishings sits beside a Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams sofa and a coffee table that was custom made by Epoch Furnishings from locally sourced wood.

“I find myself gravitating towards the stuff from the ’50s and ’60s because of the quality.” —Jodie Strum

That desire to blend the old with the new extends to other design decisions. “I read an article that said the worst thing you can do to a Midcentury home is paint the brick,” Strum says. “I would watch TV and stare at the brick [fireplace in my den] and tell myself, ‘Jodie, the worst thing you can do is paint the brick.’ When I finally had it painted, I came home and said, ‘Oh, it was supposed to be painted.’ ”

Strum credits the house with helping her find her personal style. “I designed this house myself for a reason,” she says.

Hard Hat Happy Hour: Bus Barn Takeover

Richmond is continuously growing in unexpected ways. This was further proven to us when we attended the latest Hard Hat Happy with Richmond Biz Sense.

About the event and purpose,

"Now dubbed Cary Street Station, the 7-acre site at 101 S. Davis Ave. is being transformed by developers Tom Dickey and Chris Johnson of the Monument Cos., and Howard Kellman of the Edison Co., into 285 apartments and commercial space, for a combined 280,000 square feet. (...)

Upon completion, Cary Street Station will have nine buildings, including seven rehabbed structures and two built from scratch.

Johnson said last week 47 of the 160 apartments in the existing historic buildings are ready, and 30 already are leased. Another 64 apartments will be completed March 1, an additional 49 will follow later that month, and the new buildings are set to be ready by summer. Leases are in the works for restaurant and office tenants in the Cary Street-fronted commercial space." - via RichmondBizSense

What's so impressive about this particular development, is that it was an area that could have been potentially been left untouched. The recent sprawl of restaurants and with Carytown being just a few steps away it made this project a no brainer for this space to be repurposed into a residential area. It's good to see that there is plenty of people with vision in Richmond who have a commitment to making our city even better than what it is now.

We love being involved in these types of events because it allows us to learn where new projects are being developed in the city, giving us insight into what commercial and residential Real Estate will be like in the future.

HHHunt closes on land for Henrico townhomes

Safe Harbor Title worked closely with the Seller, Purchaser and the Purchaser's legal team to see this transaction through from start to finish.  We look forward to watching this new Henrico County community develop!

Read the full article below, click here to view original source

A rendering of HHHunt's planned three-story townhomes 10700 Ridgefield Parkway. (Courtesy HHHunt)

A site in western Henrico previously eyed for a senior living facility will instead be filled with more than five dozen townhomes by HHHunt.

The developer closed Friday on a 7.5-acre property at 10700 Ridgefield Parkway, where it plans to build 66 three-story townhomes. The site is along Ridgefield Green Drive between Ridgefield and John Rolfe parkways, behind a Walgreens pharmacy east of the intersection.

The purchase price was not disclosed nor listed on online property records Friday afternoon.

Jonathan Ridout, development director for HHHunt Communities, said the purchase price is included in its overall cost estimate for the project, $5.2 million. HHHunt Homes, another division of the company, will construct the project, called Ridgefield Green.

HHHunt Communities purchased the land from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, which bought it in 2004 for $1.6 million. A county assessment most recently valued the property at $1.13 million.

Ridout said the company picked up the project from another developer that secured zoning approval last year. County records list that developer as Wilkins-Bradley Partners LLC.

The property previously was eyed by Bickford Senior Living for a facility it has since constructed at 11200 W. Huguenot Road in Chesterfield County. The Kansas-based company had proposed a project comparable to the 37,000-square-foot, 60-bed facility in 2015, but withdrew its rezoning request after several deferrals by Henrico’s review boards.

Ridout said the project was appealing to HHHunt as an infill opportunity.

“We traditionally do larger, master-planned communities, but we also have been looking for some of these smaller infill projects. This is just in a great location,” he said.

“You’ve got the John Rolfe YMCA that’s right across the street from it; it’s so close to the other parks, little league fields; it’s got great schools.”

Each unit at Ridgefield Green will be at least 1,540 square feet and include a front-entry one-car garage and customizable interiors. Prices for the units, ranging from two to three bedrooms and 1½ to two bathrooms, will start in the low $300,000s.

The property will include a small park area with tables and open space in the center of the community. A development plan was approved by the county in January, and Ridout said the company is securing construction approvals.

Construction is scheduled to begin this month, with the first units opening by late August or early September.

Known for larger communities such as Wyndham, Wellesley and Twin Hickory in Henrico and Charter Colony in Chesterfield, HHHunt has added several projects to its plate in recent months. On the multifamily side, it’s planning its next wave of townhomes at Rocketts Landing, where construction on an apartment building recently began.

Last month, the company announced plans for a 520-home age-restricted community on 200 acres next to Capital One’s Goochland County campus. It also is planning more than 1,000 homes on 250 acres near Virginia Center Commons, recently selling a portion of that project slated for apartments to Virginia Beach-based Kotarides Builders.

Jonathan Spiers is a senior reporter and assistant editor at BizSense. He covers residential real estate, public companies, and advertising/marketing. He's a graduate of Virginia Tech. He can be reached at Jonathan@richmondbizsense.com and (804) 308-2447.

2017 Market Review with GRACRE

Why do so many agents and customers choose Safe Harbor Title to handle their Commercial and Residential Real Estate Transactions? Yes, a lot of you may know that customer service is a top priority for us however, our knowledge of the local market is what really keeps us on top. 

We had the opportunity to attend a fantastic presentation put together by GRACRE at the Westin in Richmond. What was so interesting about this specific presentation is that it didn't just focus on Commercial or Residential but instead how these two Markets affect each other and the overall impact for potential investors and buyers. For example, we're seeing a growing trend in Richmond of a mixture of both - we see shopping centers that have residential housing built into them. One of the first mixed used spaces is West Broad Village in Short Pump. You can find grocery stores, restaurants, a hotel, apartments and townhouses all in the same complex. That same concept is starting to expand to other areas of Richmond and is very much a trend. 

Another interesting point of the presentation is the number of food chains that have started to appear in Richmond, we are seeing more and more national grocery stores opening their doors in our market, this points to a healthy growth in Residential Real Estate. This growth is not reflected with national retail stores but they hope for this to change soon. 

The overall take is that a growing number of people are interested in buying in areas that have accessible amenities and commodities without the need of driving. Instead, people are yearning to have more of a "city living". 

We like to know what is happening in city because it allows us to provide insight to the trends and smart investment choices with the agents and customers that we work with. If you ever have any questions about the area that you're looking to buy or whether or not you think your investment will hold up, don't hesitate to give us a call! 

Gail Markey Set to Retire

After over 30 years in the title insurance industry and over 3 years with safe harbor title, Gail Markey is retiring to a life of horses, husband and grand babies (in no particular order 😜).
Thank you for giving us so much of your time, talent and wisdom, Gail. You will be dearly missed but never forgotten!