Luxury housing developer Toll Brothers is resurrecting a gated community housing development in Superior Township that was abandoned in 2006.
The company has submitted area plans for The Woodlands at Geddes Glen to the township planning commission for its meeting on Wednesday night.
Toll Brothers was a major driver of Washtenaw County's housing boom in the early 2000s, and recently returned to the county with the new Pines at Lake Forrest Development in Pittsfield Township.
Builders work on a Toll Brothers home in Scottsdale, Ariz. in 2007.
Ross D. Franklin | AP Photo
“We’re seeing a lot of activity in the market in this area, and we’ve had a desire to re-enter the Superior Township market since the selling out of our Arbor Hills and Glenborough developments,” he said. “The combination makes for great timing.”
Noles said demographics vary among home buyers, but in previous Superior Township developments, he’s seen buyers ranging from doctors at the University of Michigan and St. Joseph Mercy hospitals to businessmen who like the proximity to the Detroit Metro Airport.
Current plans are to break ground on the property in the spring and complete the installation of roads for the community by the end of July. Noles said once the township approves the area plans, the company will be able to start selling homes early in 2013 out of offices at the Pines at Lake Forrest.
“We don’t build spec build, so houses are always sold before we build them,” he said.
“We are very conservative, which I think is one of the reasons we’ve been around for over 40 years. Everything you see is either on a pre-sold basis or is our model house for the community.”
Noles said in the current housing market he expects the development to sell out within three years of sales opening. Once a customer purchases a house, it generally takes nine months to a year for the construction to be completed.
“We hire all local trades to build the house,” Noles said. “The foundations, the roofs, the drywall, are all local subcontractors. But we don’t hire a general contractor, that’s what we do.”
Toll Brothers' (NYSE: TOL) corporate office is in Philadelphia, Pa., and the company operates an office in New Hudson, Mich. The company's stock was being traded Tuesday at $34.55 a share, giving it a market cap of $5.81 billion. The company's stock is up 64 percent from $21.01 a share at the beginning of the year. The development firm currently has the land under contract and terms of sale from former owner Harry Durbin were not available.
Ben Freed covers business for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at 734-623-2528 or email him at benfreed@annarbor.com. Follow him on twitter @BFreedinA2