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Home builder bucks Bluff trend by building in Bottom communities
By ALAN J. ORTBALS

   Home builders continue to flock to the Bluff communities in Southwestern Illinois.

   Between June 2003 and May 2004, 2,663 new homes were started in Madison and St. Clair counties - the great majority of them in the Bluff communities.

   For example, during that time period nearly 500 new homes were built in the O'Fallon/Shiloh area, compared to just four in East St. Louis, five in Alton and six in Cahokia.

   Jerry Rombach, executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Greater Southwest Illinois, said there are a number of reasons for this phenomenon.

   One, he said, is that there are concerns in the American Bottoms with both environmental and stormwater issues that add to the cost and complexity of development.

   Also, the building community, he said, is simply responding to the development trends it sees. The population of Southwestern Illinois has been moving from the Bottoms to the Bluffs for more than 30 years - and that trend is continuing. Home builders are just tracking homebuyers.

   Another factor, according to Rombach, is the relatively low sale price of homes in the communities of the American Bottoms. Home builders worry they can't make a profit in areas where existing homes sell for much less than the cost of new construction; they are attracted to the higher price ceiling of the Bluff communities.

   And finally, Rombach said, the changing demographics dissuade home builders.

   "The social factors of some of the communities in the American Bottoms are such that developers are shy to get involved in a type of development that they're not used to," he said. "Some of the more complex development deals require a discipline, relationships and understanding that a lot of builders and developers simply don't have and don't want to have."

   But Rombach says times are changing.

   "There is starting to be recognition of potential in the American Bottoms," he said. "We are seeing increasing activity in Alton, Dupo and Cahokia."

   One residential developer and home builder who is bucking the Bottoms to Bluffs trend is Gary Stark of Stark Homes. Stark grew up in Granite City and became interested in construction work as a high school student, while working at a Kentucky Fried Chicken that underwent a remodeling.

   Stark worked in construction after high school for about four years before starting his own concrete business in 1979. While pouring streets and driveways for developers, he began to build his own homes for sale on lots he would buy in various subdivisions.

   But after a few years of that effort, he came up with a better idea.

   "I woke up one day and said, 'I'm pouring these streets for all these developers; I need to do it for Gary Stark,'" he said.

   That's when he entered the real estate development business.

   Stark partnered on 15 to 20 subdivisions in the Edwardsville area, but decided there was too much competition up on the Bluffs and decided to go against the flow.

   Stark's first foray into the American Bottoms was the Timberlake subdivision in Pontoon Beach. Although the population was moving in the opposite direction, Stark believed in the area.

   "The bank didn't really want to loan me any money because it thought this was such a bad deal, but I knew that the area couldn't go wrong," he said. "You have all the highways. You can pull out of your driveway here and drive to St. Louis in 12 minutes."

   Timberlake consisted of 90 lots and was built out in just a few years.

   Stark's second Bottoms project was Emerald Meadows, located near the junction of Illinois Route 162 and Horseshoe Lake Road in Pontoon Beach. He bought 108 acres of farm land and planned a seven-phase, 235-lot subdivision.

   "I knew that in order to get it started, I could not make a whole lot of profit off the first phase," he said. "When I first started, I tried to go from $140,000 and up. Now you can't touch anything in here for less than $180,000…and there are houses in here up to $350,000."

   The first phase consisted of 41 lots. Stark is currently working on Phase 7. He's built 165 homes so far and has 70 lots left.

   While Stark said many of his homebuyers come from the vicinity of Granite City, he is also drawing people from all over the metropolitan area.

   "A lot of the people who are buying these homes are from Granite City, Bethalto or Hamel," Stark said, "because they see it is so much closer to St. Louis. And I'm getting a lot of St. Louis people. I would say one in every eight or 10 houses are bought by someone coming over from St. Louis."

   He expects to complete the Emerald Meadows subdivision in two years - and he's already looking for land for his next Bottoms project.

   Rombach said Stark's success will attract other home builders back to the Bottoms.

   "Chris Jones is a builder in Waterloo and Columbia and now he's doing 100-plus homes in Dupo," said Rombach. "We've spent a lot of time trying to get folks to become aware of opportunities in those Bottoms communities."