...continued Caseyville's wooded lots, estate-sized homes ready for buyers

amenities and other infrastructure is well under way.
   In an era when home starts and home sales nationally are less than robust, is there regional concern about what market conditions mean to an upscale project like Forest Lakes? The price points on the homes scheduled for construction in this development range from the mid $200,000s to $1.5 million.
   Jerry Rombach, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Southwest Illinois, is among those who are not worried about the Caseyville-based development.
   "I know there's a lot of concern in this regional market about inventory when it comes to spec building," said Rombach, "but we just don't see an over building in these higher price ranges. This developer has been very selective in its choice of builders. And in terms of the market for these homes, there's a market of folks who have been waiting and waiting for it (Forest Lakes) for years and are now ready to jump on it."
   Missouri-based American Heritage Homes owns a large number of lots on which it is selling homes from its various design plans.
   Padgett Building & Remodeling and Edwardsville-based Phelps Construction Inc. are able to sell and build custom homes on any of 33 large, wooded lots varying in size from half an acre up to one acre in size. Many of these, according to Ron Padgett, chief executive officer and co-owner of Padgett Building & Remodeling, have breathtaking views that overlook valleys - some even overlook the downtown St. Louis skyline. Padgett sees his customer as the St. Louis-based executive opting for quality of life and a short commute.
   "The added frustrations executives are currently experiencing with all the interstate construction and related lane closures is actually perfect timing for our message about Forest Lakes," said Padgett. "We're offering them a beautiful, custom-built home on a wooded lot with a 20-minute drive and the chance to get rid of a whole lot of windshield time and frustration."
   Like Rombach, Padgett says the custom home market here hasn't slowed down any time lately. Padgett says it's because of the nature of custom buyers and the nature of the way they finance homes of this quality. He doesn't yet have any Forest Lakes homebuyers who have signed on the dotted line but says he's "very close" with eight to 10 buyers.
   "The custom market has not been affected in the manor that the smaller home market has been affected," Padgett said. "We have not seen any reflection of this at all, and I think it's because custom buyers amass their financing in other ways. They have different ways and means of moving their money around to purchase homes at the half-million-dollar level and up."
   With regard to the engineering and progress on infrastructural work at Forest Lakes, engineering firm Burns & McDonnell Inc. is completing the design on the 10th and final residential area within the hilly, picturesque terrain that stretches east-west from Illinois Rtes. 159 to 157.

   Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of compacted dirt have been moved for the Forest Lakes project, according to Mark Harrison, project manager for Burns & McDonnell, the engineering firm that has been leading the infrastructural work on phase one.
   Nearly half of the 10 residential areas in Forest Lakes are ready to be developed and the remaining areas are close to completion, according to Harrison.
   "We're well under way with the construction of roadways, waterlines and sewer lines," he said. "We concentrated on three of the 10 areas first because Sport Choice had a homebuilder in mind that wanted to purchase those areas on which to build homes. After that, a lot of the work was a function of availability of the areas themselves and strategic moving of the earthwork. If a lot of excavation was in one area, and there was a reason to fill in another area, we would work those areas in unison," Harrison added. "It was a complicated process due to the enormity of the area and the variance in the topography."
   Construction of the parkway, named George Chance Parkway after Caseyville's current mayor, is nearly finished; it stretches east-west through the development boulevard-style as the main thoroughfare.
   "The Forest Lakes project really began in earnest back in December 2004," said Adam Hill, agent with Caseyville Sport Choice LLC. "On a piece of property like this, you have an immense amount of permitting issues that you need to undertake, but these professionals tackled the challenges and met them. The engineers coordinated the movement of an immense amount of earth for this one-of-a-kind development," he added.
   Mayor George Chance said the $31 million issued back in December 2004 to finance the development are revenue bonds. As opposed to general obligation bonds, these revenue bonds are backed solely by tax increment financing revenues and do not carry the full faith and credit of the village of Caseyville.
   Other engineering firms working on the large-scale geotechnical project include SCI Engineering Inc., Geotechnology Inc. and Elkott Engineering; each has offices in St. Clair County.
   Approximately 30 acres of the development dedicated to retail and located along Rte. 159 on the eastern edge of the development has utilities at the site, Hill said, is at or near the final elevation and ready for construction. EWR Associates designed the Forest Lakes Commercial Centre, according to Steve Downen, project architect with EWR, as well as the entrance monuments and the landscaping for the parkway.
   Hill said the very nature of what is making Forest Lakes a tough exercise in engineering is also what brings forth the project's intrinsic beauty. The development's variance in elevation is as much as 180 feet, according to Peckham Guyton Albers & Viets Inc., the architectural firm that created the site design for Forest Lakes.
   "The significant elevation variation adds to the majesty of this project," said Hill. "This is a majestic piece of property that is literally cut into the bluff lines. There's nothing flat about it. Nearly every single home can have a walk-out basement with mature tree lines. That was one of our development priorities - to make a serious effort in the preservation of the existing forestry of the area."

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