[HSVTiger]

Apartment construction update

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Construction is about to start on an addition to the Huntsville-area apartment market - Providence Place Apartments in west Huntsville's Village of Providence.
The Sterling Group, based in Mishawaka, Ind., is co-developing the apartments with Todd Slyman and David Slyman Jr., the founders of Providence.
Lance Swank, the chief operating officer of The Sterling Group, said site work at the northeast corner of Providence Main Street and Biltmore Drive will start next week. The first phase of Providence Place has 226 units, with completion expected by April 2013.
"The first buildings will be available for occupancy in September," Swank said.
The project could potentially have another 90 units, depending on the success of the first phase, he said.
Why build in this area, and why now?
"We do an extensive amount of research in markets we're interested in," said Swank, and Huntsville has "all the characteristics that draw us to a community," including a diverse economy, a large white-collar workforce and sustained income and population growth.
"There are extremely high occupancy rates in the existing multifamily properties in the submarket" where the Village of Providence is, he said. "It's a supply-constrained market right now."
The property also will have a competitive advantage being in the Providence community, he said.
There are a number of other apartment projects under construction or planned this year.
In downtown Huntsville, Charlie Sealy III and his wife, Sasha, are converting the vacant Belk Hudson building on Washington Street into 75 loft apartments.
"We're under construction right now," said Sealy, who expects Belk Hudson Lofts to be open in the fall, sometime around September or October.

Among other multifamily properties:
• Work is expected to start in early March on Franklin Hills, a 56-unit low-income housing tax credit property for ages 55 and older at 5300 Millennium Drive in northwest Huntsville. Mike Brandt, vice president of construction for the developer, Atlanta-based TBG Residential, said the project should take about 12 months.
• Construction should start in the late summer for roughly 240 luxury, urban-style lofts as part of a planned redevelopment of the former Councill Courts public housing site near Huntsville Hospital, a joint project between Bristol Development Group and PGM Properties. Another downtown project)
"It's going to be a game changer for Huntsville," said Sam Yeager, one of the founding partners of Bristol Development Group.
• Depending on the weather, plans are to break ground in March for Limestone Creek, a 528-unit apartment complex in west Huntsville, east of Mooresville Road and north of the I-565 service road.
"We'll probably start with a little over 100 units for the first phase," said Jim Hall, who handles site planning for the developer Edward Rose Properties. "It will probably take us three to four years to build" the entire complex.
HSV Times