Identifying and acquiring locations

• Challenge – This speculative business requires identifying markets and locations where people want to live and then planning and designing the appropriate community. It is important to understand the economic viability early in the process.
• Solution – By researching growth markets, we identified several areas with potential. We communicated our goal with brokers, cities, friends and landowners. Because of Liberty’s relationships from other development projects in Avon, many sites were brought to our attention.

Creating value in spite of land encumbrances

• Challenge – Fifty-four acres of land were encumbered by approximately 20 acres of Category II wetlands.
• Solution – We designed the community incorporating the wetlands and only disturbing those areas that were unavoidable. This solution was more economical and environmentally friendly than buying or creating wetlands credits off site. It also made St. James Woods more private and aesthetically inviting than other similar communities.

St. James Woods is home to 60 families and is considered a premium location to live in Avon, Ohio. By incorporating the wetlands into the plan, rather than destroy them, we created an attractive streetscape. We believe this helped increase customer demand, which allowed Garland to continue building and selling new homes during the 2008 recession.