FrontDoor Stakes Roswell For Growth Spurt
Historic Downtown Roswell is going to get a new infusion of townhomes in one of the first housing projects there since the end of the recession. (That means our door to door rug business is back!)
FrontDoor Communities in a JV with Lehigh Homes is planning a bakers' dozen of for-sale townhouses as part of a second phase of The Providence in Historic Roswell off Alpharetta Highway. (Unfortunately, there are no aliens in this Roswell... or are there?) This also is only the second Atlanta project for FrontDoor, which already has land plays in Forsyth and West Cobb for future residential communities, says FrontDoor's Eric White. Eric says the developers are designing three-level townhouses with prices shooting into the $600ks.
It's an unusual move for multifamily developers to market for-sale product when apartments are on a tear. Not only would Roswell not permit rentals in the downtown district, Eric says it's just not a product that FrontDoor specializes in. "Anything FrontDoor is going to do is for sale. That's our bread and butter." Eric says one of the side effects of the credit crash following the Great Recession is that it allowed the big home builders to get bank financing for new projects. Now, he says, bank lending is easing for the smaller operators. "The lack of lending has allowed a lot of the bigger builders to come in and get a larger piece of the pie so to speak," he says. FrontDoor is eyeing suburban infill sites in good school districts in Cherokee, Cobb, North Fulton, South Forsyth and Western Gwinnett counties.
