Last Friday, Jan. 3, Wheelock Street Capital announced it had made its second residential investment in Wake Forest in three years, this time entering a multi-year contract to “acquire and develop the for-sale residential portion” of the future Holding Village subdivision from its current owner, the American Land Fund (ALF) headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
There was no response to an inquiry about the dollar amount of the contract. Wheelock Street Capital has headquarters in Greenwich, Conn., and Boston, Mass.
Holding Village was approved in 2007 by the Wake Forest Planning and Town boards as the first traditional neighborhood subdivision with unique specifications about density, setbacks and other design criteria. The 256 acres at that time was owned by Entrust Holdings, a corporation set up by the heirs of W.W. Holding III, part of the 900-acre Holding Farm owned by W.W. Holding and his brother, Walter. Entrust Holdings had planned to develop the subdivision with Roger Perry, a Chapel Hill developer, but the recession hit shortly after the project was approved. Entrust Holdings sold the land and the accompanying development plan to ALF in August 2011 for an estimated $8 million.
In October of 2011 Wheelock purchased 73 acres in the Traditions subdivision from Heritage developer Andy Ammons for $2,360,000 and contracted with JPM South, a Raleigh firm, to oversee and subcontract the infrastructure and major road construction and develop the residential area just north of the N.C. 98 bypass, the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway. That area is now almost completely filled with homes.
ALF partnered with Reader & Partners, a real estate development firm based in Orlando, Fla., to build Holding Farms, and Wheelock announced it would also partner with Reader & Partners, which is headed by veteran developer Perry Reader.
“We are delighted to be making our second investment in the Triangle and the first with Perry and his team at Reader & Partners,” Dan Green, a Wheelock principal and head of land acquisitions, said. “Holding Village exemplifies our strategy of investing in well-located real estate in markets with long term growth potential.”
Wheelock and Reader expect to begin work on the first phase with about 120 home sites in 2014. The announcement said several homebuilders in the region have been selected and their names will be announced later.
Dean Barberree, head of overseas operations for Reader & Partners, and Scott Lay, a resident of Heritage, will manage the day-to-day operations.
The approved plan for Holding Village, which remains in effect, was for 305 townhouses, duplexes and live/work units along with 583 multi-family units and 462 single-family homes. In addition, there was 25,000 square feet planned for civic, church and club activities, 48,000 square feet of retail activity, and 40,000 square feet for business and office use. The 256 acres lie south of the Dr. Calvin Jones Highway (N.C. 98 Bypass), east of the CSX rail line, north of Rogers Road and west of parts of Heritage.
This latest purchase by Wheelock is part of what now could be called a Wake Forest tradition – local real estate/construction firm/development owners selling all or part of an existing or future subdivision to a national firm with deep pockets. In early 2012 Contentnea Creek Development Company, which had developed Bishops Grant, sold 48 unbuilt lots to the national building firm of Ryan Homes for close to an estimated $3 million. In the same time period the national firm Toll Brothers purchased 576 acres in the Hasentree luxury golf community along N.C. 98 west of Wake Forest, spending a reported $23.46 million. A short time earlier, SunTrust Bank, which had underwritten the development, was the sole bidder at the foreclosure auction, offering $32.4 million for the unsold 934 acres.
