Story BY SUSAN ERLER
serler@nwitimes.com| Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Townhomes being built this year in Crown Point's Ellendale Farm subdivision are part of the latest project by the family-run development firm Fleming Realty.
The company will put up 28 townhome units in its Ellendale Farm addition, while simultaneously constructing New Town West, a combination residential and retail building in the city's downtown.
A major player in the city's development boom of recent years, the company sees no reason to stop now.
"We would not be proceeding with things if we did not see the economy being viable," said Ryan Fleming, who operates Fleming Realty with his father, Tom.
Permits for 172 new single-family homes in Crown Point were pulled in 2007. The year failed to scale the heights of the 2003 to 2005 building boom in the city, but ranked among its top 10 years for home construction over six decades.
"You have to take it in perspective," Ryan Fleming said. "Things don't go up forever, but they haven't come crashing down."
Across Lake County, builders planned nearly 1,235 new single-family homes last year, the majority in south county communities like St. John, Winfield and Cedar Lake.
Close to 2,000 new housing units, from apartments and condos to show-stopper mansions, had been entered onto planning books or were built in Cedar Lake over the past decade, most in the last few years.
Countywide, there were about 425 fewer single-family home starts last year compared to 2006, but the slide was less severe than in many parts of the nation and fell short of the nation's 30 percent decline.
"In residential construction, our area continues to outpace what's happening across the nation," said Todd Olthof, whose family-run Olthof Homes has projects in the Hamilton Square and Covington subdivisions in Crown Point, as well as in other parts of the region.
Migration from across the Illinois state line continues to drive the market, Olthof said, with buyers attracted by relatively lower taxes, as well as the lifestyle and amenities the region offers, Olthof said.
"Many buyers find out their friends have moved here and they come here to join them," Olthof said.
Northwest Indiana's housing market for the most part bucked a nationwide trend last year by holding onto housing values.
In July, the median selling price of a home in the region stood at $154,900, a 7.1 percent climb from $144,575 the previous year.
"Our housing values have stayed stable," said Peter Novak, executive director of the Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors.
The housing boom has attracted retail and commercial development to Lake County, from the massive Cabela's outdoor sporting goods store on the north end of U.S. 41 in Hammond to a pair of lifestyle-designed shopping centers farther south on U.S. 41 in Schererville.
Where new rooftops have popped up, restaurants, grocers and other retailers have followed, building new locations across the county, including more than a dozen new bank branches.
The value of permits for commercial and industrial construction totaled an estimated $120 million last year in Crown Point alone, according to the city's planning department.
Jack Phair, whose Holladay Properties partnered with Purdue University to developed Ameriplex at the Crossroads in Merrillville, said his company sees a strong future for the region.
The Crossroads complex, home to a Purdue University technology park, is two years into a five-year build-out.
"We think what's going to happen there is going to be spectacular," Phair said.
Combined with the company's other development in Porter County, including Ameriplex at the Port and a partnership with Memorial Hospital Systems in Valparaiso, "it has renewed our enthusiasm, energized our firm to continue our investments in Northwest Indiana," Phair said
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