After two years of adjustments, 'innovative project' is taking off

By RACHEL STULTS
Staff Writer

BRENTWOOD — For more than two years, 200 acres off Murray Lane have stood empty, waiting to be developed into a gated community filled with single-family residences and town homes, the first development of its kind to be approved for Brentwood.

Today, Southern Land Co.'s long-awaited Windstone is finally on its way, and the evidence stands in the middle of those 200 acres.

In what will be the center of the 110-lot project that promises a high-end "Georgetown" kind of feel, the framing has gone up on the first town home unit while, down the street, work is under way on upscale village homes. Windstone's home and town home prices start at $1 million.

Developers anticipate construction to pick up as early as next month and hit a fast track by spring, when temperatures warm, said Linda Stone, Windstone's principal broker. They're shooting for one unit to be completed every 90-100 days, she said, and hope to complete work on the community by 2010.

"There's going to be a lot more going on in the next 45 days," Stone said. "And we'll actually have people living in Windstone by the end of 2007."

That's good news for future residents, who have been snatching up home sites and have been waiting to move into the community that has long been only in the planning stages.

Delays helped meet requests

In 2004, Southern Land Co. got the go-ahead for Windstone to be built on the land that was previously used by country music star Eddy Arnold for horseback riding.

But the 30 town homes included in the project were unique from Brentwood's Open Space Residential Development subdivisions, which create 35 percent of the project for the development and 65 percent reserved for green space. Windstone's infusion of town homes with single-family residences is the first time an Innovative Project designation, which was added to Brentwood zoning codes in 2003, was used to create a new project.

Although Southern Land Co. previously projected completion on some phases of the development for 2006, perfecting the innovative design of the town homes to meet the desires of Brentwood city officials and residents has caused a few speed bumps in the project's timeline, said Jim Cheney, a spokesman for Southern Land Co.

The past two years have been spent meeting with focus groups and more than 300 people who are on a waiting list for those town homes. But the result, Cheney said, is a development that combines Southern Land Co.'s trademark of creating community with all the trappings of an upscale Brentwood neighborhood.

"We had some unanticipated delays in terms of getting infrastructure in place and we spent a lot of time trying to make sure we programmed this right," Cheney said. "It kept changing based on what they (focus groups) wanted and we had a lot of different redesigns. It's not as on schedule as we hoped it would be at this point, but I think all the time we spent on infrastructure or on design review in the long term is going benefit everyone."

The start of a trend?

Since the development's approval, other similar projects, including Berkley Walk on Edmondson Pike and Taramore on Split Log Road, have also gotten under way.

"Once this was approved on the city level, it opens doorways for others to pursue it," Cheney said. "We've led a charge in terms of breaking a mold consistent with the city of Brentwood, but they were supportive and I think they will continue that."

But don't expect an explosion of these types of communities in Brentwood as it works toward build-out over the next 20 years, city officials say.

"There's a void in that area for this type of development," Mayor Joe Sweeney said. "But will this be the big thing in Brentwood in the future? No."

Although city officials expect to see more applications from developers looking to integrate town homes into their plans, they don't anticipate needing too many more of those types of developments in Brentwood.

"I think one of the principal reasons behind offering mixed housing types was to provide a variety of options, especially in respect to the aging population and their reduced needs for housing size," said Joe Lassus, Brentwood's planning and codes director.

Sweeney said the city will continue to be conservative in its approval of such developments, filling the void when needed to accommodate for those residents who don't want the upkeep of a yard. But by no means are Brentwood's high-end homes on large lots a thing of the past.

"There's a need for town homes, but it's a slight need," Sweeney said. "I don't think it will be paramount in the future."