Tea development draws interest after school bond passes

One new home is up and another is under construction in the Boulder Addition in the southeast end of Tea.

Harr & Lemme is the developer for the addition and it’s their first time in Tea. Primarily their work has been done in Sioux Falls, Harrisburg and Brandon.

Joel Ingle with Harr & Lemme said the company purchased the property just before the recession.

“When we purchased that property, our timing wasn’t very good. We purchased it right before the recession,” he said.

Ingle noted they were seeing the cost of land and improvements getting out of reach for young families to purchase homes in Sioux Falls.

“There was a huge demand for single family housing, but it was difficult to keep the price parameters in check where they could afford to finance them. Tea and Harrisburg and Brandon were all becoming attractive to us as a developer and buyers back in 2005 and 2006,” Ingle said.

Ingle said the first home in the development is sold and set to close soon. Another has the foundation in.

In the first phase, there are 24 lots. Six of those lots are sold or are under contract. Ingle said his company’s expectations were to do 10-12 homes a year.

He notes that they are a little behind where they wanted to be.

“We really didn’t get the lots ready until too late in the season last year, so we’re kind of I anticipate we’ll get in somewhere in that 10 lot range this year,” he said.

At this point in the development, the lots are all for single-family homes. They are promoting the homes as move-up homes. For the whole development, which is from First Street south to what will be Ninth Street and from the Athletic Complex east to Heritage Parkway, they have about 180 lots for single-family home construction. They also have some lots along Heritage Parkway that are geared toward multi-family housing. Along First Street, some of that is zoned business or commercial.

Ingle said the building of a new elementary south of the Athletic Complex has spurred interest in the lots.

“Within two or three days of the bond election, I had people that were calling inquiring about lots that were looking at Tea and heard about the new school and thought it would be excellent to be in close proximity to walk to school,” Ingle said. “That’s always, always a boon for a neighborhood.”

He said they will start doing some of the work late next summer to have some more lots ready in 2019.