Delaware builder strikes Hallsley-area deal with Sowers

A preliminary layout of the site. (Courtesy Schell Brothers)

A newcomer to the Richmond homebuilding market has received a warm welcome from a member of a busy family of local developers.

Schell Brothers, a Delaware-based builder that made its entrance into Richmond earlier this year, closed Thursday on a nearly 40-acre tract at 1500 Old Hundred Road, along the east side of Hallsley in Chesterfield County. The company purchased the option for the land from Midlothian Development Partners, an entity run by developer Casey Sowers.

The purchase price for the option was $950,000. County records list the landowner as a trust for Hughey A. Woodle Jr. and Sue S. Woodle, who purchased the land in 1967 for $20,600.

Sowers said he was planning to develop the tract on his own when he heard that Schell was looking to enter the Richmond market. He said Schell inquired about properties that could work for them, and they identified the Hallsley tract as an opportunity that was beneficial to both sides.

“Schell’s looking to make a presence in Chesterfield, and I think that project is perfectly suited for them,” Sowers said. “There are some nice, really high-quality big lots in an area that’s been experiencing growth and seems to be selling well. Hopefully it will be the first step of many for Schell out there in that area.”

Sowers noted the deal was aided by his familiarity with Shane Burnette, who left Midlothian-based Perkinson Homes to head up Schell Brothers’ Richmond office. He said he had been working with the landowner on a deal for several years when Schell’s entry into the market presented a new opportunity.

“Sometimes these deals take a long time to develop,” Sowers said. “We weren’t actively looking to sell the project; in fact, we first considered just selling the lots to them. But it made sense to them, and to us, to go ahead and let them take title to the property and develop it themselves – to put their fingerprints on it and do it the way that they wanted to as perhaps their introduction into the Midlothian market, if not the larger market.”

The deal, financed by Union Bank & Trust, is Schell’s first significant land buy in the area after announcing its expansion to Richmond in May. The company has closed on one lot in the Veranda Oaks section of Magnolia Green, where it plans to build a model and deliver a total of 69 lots in its own section by next March.

Schell is also moving forward in developer George Emerson’s Lake Margaret community, a 55-and-up section of The Highlands. The company is aiming to build a model there by year’s end and start selling thereafter. Burnette said the company’s section there won’t be ready for some time after that, though he said it has secured several premium lakefront lots.

A Schell Brothers home.

Schell is also working on at least two other projects that Burnette declined to name. He said the company has submitted letters of intent on those.

Burnette said work would start immediately on the Hallsley-area tract, the formal name of which will be The Sanctuary at Roseland. He said construction will start next Monday, with presales launching in late October or early November. After a model is built, a grand opening would be held in April or May, Burnette said.

“We’re excited to get that across the finish line,” he said.

The Sanctuary at Roseland will consist of 28 lots, each totaling approximately 1 acre. While not part of Hallsley, the subdivision would be accessed only through Hallsley with no entrance off Old Hundred Road.

Homes will be upwards of 3,200 square feet with side-load garages and varying bedroom and bathroom counts. Available floorplans will include first-floor master bedrooms and also offer basements.

The Craftsman-style homes will include low-maintenance exteriors with fiber cement siding, energy efficiency features and other construction features common to Schell. Prices will range from the mid-$400,000s to $600,000 and up, said Adam Copenhaver, who joined Schell after 13 years with Eagle Construction of Virginia.

“We’ve examined the Hallsley and surrounding market and feel our home plans fit extremely well and complement the current subset of traditional plans available,” Copenhaver said in an email. “Not only will we offer unique, brand-new Craftsman elevation opportunities for each of our home plans, but we’ll continue to offer the elevations that have built the Schell brand.”

Richmond is Schell’s first expansion out of Delaware, where the 14-year-old company totaled $209 million in sales and 351 closings last year.

The Sanctuary at Roseland refers to Riverton Associates’ larger Roseland development that stalled in the wake of the housing market downturn. Riverton was started by Sowers and his late father, Buddy Sowers, who died in 2014.

Buddy and his brother, Mark Sowers, started Hallsley, which was bought in 2013 by East West Communities.

Meanwhile, Casey Sowers is developing the final section of Riverton’s Winterfield Place development on the Chesterfield-Powhatan county line. In February, he said the company is planning to bring back between 350 and 600 acres of the Roseland property for rezoning later this year.